Ann-Marie Fleming is the brilliant animator/film
maker and graphic artist of “The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam” – which
we featured at the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year
Dinner a few years ago….

Ann-Marie's great-grandfather was the legendary vaudeville magician, Long Tack Sam.  Her great-grandmother was his Austrian wife.  Her family ancestry comes from around the world, and she describes herself as hybrid – both DNA-wise, historically and culturally.

Check out the link to the Vancouver Courier article:
http://www.vancourier.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Eclectic+filmmaker+gets+animated/3596650/story.html

 

Ann Marie Fleming strums her uke
prior to the Vancouver International Film Festival, which screens her
animated short I Was A Child of Holocaust Survivors Oct. 11.

Photograph by: Dan Toulgoet, Vancouver courier

Ann Marie Fleming is no stranger to the Vancouver
International Film Festival both as a past volunteer and a filmmaker
whose works have included feature films (The French Guy), documentaries
(The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam) and animated shorts such as this
year's I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors. The talented artist and
aspiring ukulele player talked to the Courier about her latest film,
her eclectic background and why “tongue on a hot rock” is not a
metaphor.

1. What about Bernice Eisenstein's memoir I Was a Child of Holocaust
Survivors made you want to adapt it into an animated short?

a)
It's an amazing book. b) I was asked to. c) I thought I could bring
something to it.

2. Was there anything about the subject matter
you related to?

There is something everyone can relate to: it's
about family. For me, I'm constantly interested in the continuing
legacy of WWII, the burden of the history, cross-over immigration
patterns and cultural diaspora, older generations not telling their
stories-but-somehow-you're-still-living-in-them, trying to find your
own way. I think it has universal relevance and resonance.

3.
Your background is quite diverse (born in Okinawa, of Chinese and
Australian parentage, your great grandfather was a travelling Chinese
vaudevillian acrobat and magician). How does this inform or influence
your work?

Well, I'm kind of a hybrid, and so is the work I
do–thematically and technically. And I am very curious about people's
histories and backgrounds and what that represents in geopolitical
terms. I'm such a cultural mash-up that I can relate to just about
anybody's story. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Read the rest of the article at the Vancouver Courier article:
http://www.vancourier.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Eclectic+filmmaker+gets+animated/3596650/story.html