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Monday and Friday September 08 and 12, 2014 Film Festivals Einar emailed, asking for my snail mail location to which to send me the DVD copy of the film. He added that the film is doing well, premiering the previous weekend at the Telluride Film Festival to much acclaim, as he put it. I provided him my info, asking to be kept apprised of upcoming festivals, to which Einar conveyed it coming up at the Ottawa International Animation Festival September 19, 11:00am and September 21, 5:00pm. His bio technically lists his Vimeo channel wbsite, but mis-entered it so unless someone knows to remove the front end to leave vimeo.com/einarbaldvin, it would only go to an Error Page. The Pride of Strathmoor's next screening would be at the Bloomington, Indiana Diabolique International Film Festival in the Saturday Screening Block #3: 4:00pm.

Einar Baldvin in the Q&A at the Telluride Film Festival

Tuesday September 16, 2014 Momentum beginning Einar posted that he would be presented as a Guest Artist of the Semester at Riverside City College's Art Department on Monday October 6th, 2014. Einar also announced the short being an official selection for the Kurtzfilmtage Winterhur 2014, to which he referred as being "the most important short film showcase in Switzerland."

Einar Baldvin to be presented as Guest Artist of the Semester at Riverside Community College.

Monday September 22, 2014 Reviews Einar tweeted the links to two very favourable reviews: OIAF Review: Short Film Competition 4 Short Film Competition 4 might be the best of the shorts programmes so far at this year's Ottawa International Animation Festival. SC4 is an animation cornucopia and the strongest films of the programme lie at opposite ends of the spectrum. Three standout films make this programme such a winner: two are deep and dark while the third is as bright and colourful as animation can be! Deviant behaviour forms the core of the programme's centrepiece film, The Pride of Strathmoor (Einar Baldvin, USA/Iceland), which is one of the three aforementioned standouts of the programme. Strathmoor is simply a masterful feat of animation as director Einar Baldvin envisions a gothic interpretation of excerpts from the journal of a pastor from Strathmoor, Georgia, who ruminates on the perceived decay of the American South. This visually stunning tragedy feels like a horror film brought to life as the pastor's racist ranting paints a grotesque portrait of the South. This surreal film becomes more nightmarish as it reaches its climax. Strathmoor builds to a point of dizzying madness when it combines the pastor's haunting narration with hypnotically frantic flashes of light (the film includes a disclaimer that it might invite seizures). Baldvin makes The Pride of Strathmoor an utterly startling experience by making the sepia-tinted canvas (aided by intuitive use of coffee stains) look like a page of history ripped from the archives, pulled out from the darkness and exposed to the light like a vampire in its final hour. Strathmoor is a fantastic film! Indy Film Talk: Five must-sees at Diabolique Film Fest The Diabolique International Film Festival starts at IU Cinema tonight, and from what I've seen, attendees are in for a treat. Watching these films is like reading an issue of the publication sponsoring the festival, Diabolique Magazine — a haunted hayride through a host of fantastic and frightening wonders. The Pride of Strathmoor (2014) The scariest selection in the festival. A darkly dazzling fever dream of a film, it sets extracts from a Georgia pastor's journal to hypnotic, haunting animation. Set in 1927, the film visualizes the racism and paranoia stirring in the dark heart of the south. Like Ralph Steadman's political cartoons, it brings the seedy underbelly of America to vivid, vicious life. Don't miss this one on the big screen. Warning: the film contains footage which may induce seizures.

Friday September 26, 2014 Fetival wrap-up article Einar posted on Facebook: OIAF 2014: Festival Wrap-up and 'Best of the Fest' Sigh. Another festival is in the can. 2014 marks another great year for the Ottawa International Animation Festival as it caps off five days of excellent screenings with booming audiences and 'toons galore. Five great days of festival-going yielded screenings of all five feature films in competition, plus 100 shorts across the competition screenings and special programmes. Attendance seemed up for OAIF, as The ByTowne was consistently packed with anifans at every screening. (And having so many screenings at The ByTowne made the hardest part of the festival trying not to get popcorn at every single screening!) There wasn't a dud in the bunch, either, which shows that Ottawa really is the best place to see the top tier of animation. This year's screenings featured cutting edge and innovative approaches to forms both new and old. The films were very quirky, funny, dark, and strange. The shorts were especially notable, since every short in the competition warranted its place in the programme, for even in the few cases where the story/content was lacking, the form of the film more than capably made it worthwhile.

Saturday October 18 2014 DVD received With the day's post arrived my The Pride of Strathmoor DVD copy, along with one of the hand drawn "frames" of the film. Not an actual animation cell, as it were, but on good solid paper stock, one of the "coffee stained" sepia drawings used as one of the frames. I'd retreived the mail during one of the two breaks of my Paranormal View radio show, so I had to "wait" until my show ended for me to view the short. I found it visually brilliant, and darkly unsettling: no wonder it's so well received at film festivals. At the end of the short's slightly quivering credits, Einar's website, einarbaldvin.com is listed.

Friday December 05, 2014 Facebook page Einar sent me an invite to Like his newly created Pride of Strathmoor Facebook page, which I promptly Liked, and Shared with my Group and on my Wall. I even posted the link on my Twitter feed.

Sunday December 07, 2015 A highly favourable review On the new Facebook page a few days earlier Einar had posted a link to a Cinemablographer article of "a very favorable review of The Pride of Strathmoor" (the visceral visual aspects thereof): Short Film Competition 4 might be the best of the shorts programmes so far at this year's Ottawa International Animation Festival. SC4 is an animation cornucopia and the strongest films of the programme lie at opposite ends of the spectrum. Three standout films make this programme such a winner: two are deep and dark while the third is as bright and colourful as animation can be! Deviant behaviour forms the core of the programme's centrepiece film, The Pride of Strathmoor (Einar Baldvin, USA/Iceland), which is one of the three aforementioned standouts of the programme. Strathmoor is simply a masterful feat of animation as director Einar Baldvin envisions a gothic interpretation of excerpts from the journal of a pastor from Strathmoor, Georgia, who ruminates on the perceived decay of the American South. This visually stunning tragedy feels like a horror film brought to life as the pastor's racist ranting paints a grotesque portrait of the South. This surreal film becomes more nightmarish as it reaches its climax. Strathmoor builds to a point of dizzying madness when it combines the pastor's haunting narration with hypnotically frantic flashes of light. (The film includes a disclaimer that it might invite seizures.) Baldvin makes The Pride of Strathmoor an utterly startling experience by making the sepia-tinted canvas (aided by intuitive use of coffee stains) look like a page of history ripped from the archives, pulled out from the darkness and exposed to the light like a vampire in its final hour. Strathmoor is a fantastic film!

Tuesday December 09, 2014 Slamdance Einar tweeted that Pride of Strathmoor had become an official selection for the January 23rd-29th 2015 Slamdance Film Festival, the press release of which actually does include my name in the post listing, as respective projects' cast members are listed... at least the leads, I'd surmise.

Slamdance 2015

Wednesday December 17, 2014 High International Praise Einar tweeted that Pride of Strathmoor was number five on a Top Ten List of animated shorts for 2014. He provided a link to the French website page. He noticed and posted later he'd not realized at first that his film had made it onto two of the lists (I'm only showing the two lists in which it was included). Via a translation site, I was able to read it: The best animated short of 2014 We asked 17 experts in animation and elsewhere - programmers and critics - establish their lists of the 10 best animated shorts of the year. Our intention in using as many lists was to find an answer to the question: what are the 2014 films that attracted the interest of those who like to see the business and evaluate them? The stress was given to each to limit the selection to films spotted at festivals in 2014. As the life cycle of an animated short film festival is usually two years, it is possible for movies produced and launched in 2013 are found in a few selections and some of our guests have not yet had the opportunity to see films that have been selected by others. The choices have been made from film sets differ slightly between them. However, from one list to another, recurrences appear. Some films have undoubtedly excited many of our invited experts. JASON BÉLIVEAU, film critic, editor of The Four three (Quebec, Quebec) 1. Thirst, Michèle Cournoyer, Canada 2. Grace Under Water, Anthony Lawrence, Australia 3. Fugue for Cello, Trumpet and Landscape Jerzy Kucia, Poland 4. Horse, Shen Jie, China 5. The Pride of Strathmoor, Einar Baldvin, USA 6. Jiro Visits the Dentist, Gina Kamentsky, USA 7. Lesley year the Pony Has A + Day! Christian Larrave, USA 8. Hipopotamy Piotr Dumala, Poland 9. Man on the Chair, Dahee Jeong, South Korea-France 10. Love Monkey Experiments, Ainslie Henderson and Will Anderson, UK CHRIS ROBINSON, artistic director, International Festival Ottawa Animation (Not in order of preference) Unity, Tobias Stretch, USA We Can not Live without Cosmos, Konstantin Bronzit, Russia Lesley year the Pony Has A + Day! Christian Larrave, USA The Pride of Strathmoor, Einar Baldvin, USA Yield, Caleb Wood, United States Horse, Shen Jie, China Love Monkey Experiments, Ainslie Henderson and Will Anderson, UK The Obvious Child, Stephen Irwin, United Kingdom Paradise, Ryo Hirano, Japan Nuggets, Andreas Hykade, Germany

Tuesday February 24, 2015 Oscar worthy Updating my Bio page, and aware that The Pride of Strathmoor, had won Best Animated Short at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival, I discovered that the win made the short currently qualified for the Annual Academy Awards©.

Saturday April 18, 2015 Frist Frame, and European festival circuit Friday April 17, 2015 I attended the USC First Frame "film festival" held at the Director's Guild. My friend David Schroeder was also in attendence, introducing me to director Ken Del Conte (afterwards with whom I had a very pleasant conversation). The screening consisted of 20+ USC animated short films, along with which was The Pride of Strathmoor, which was well received. Einar's wife was out in Texas judging a film festival, and Einar told me that the film was to be screening in Germany May 10th at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (ITFS). From there it would be shown at the Animafest Zagreb in June (though it's not mentioned on their website), and the Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy in mid-June as well. Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy's online listing for the short actually credits me, listing my name...! The film would also soon be showing in Melbourne and Sidney, but he was not sure when. He also learned that it had just won Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short at the Florida Film Festival.

Wednesday June 24, 2015 Australian Review Einar posted via the The Pride of Strathmoor FB page, a link to a Sidney Film Festival short-films' review article, that included a paragaph on The Pride of Strathmoor: Sydney Film Festival – Animation Showcase Roundup But what could surpass the singular mortification of "The Pride of Strathmoor"? Many reminiscing film enthusiasts will search their memory for an animated image that penetrated their nightmares and come up with a mere Disney villain, but Einar Baldvin, an Iceland-born alumnus of the CalArts program that has birthed the Mouse House's best talent, finds a bleaker pit of madness and despair in John Reitman (Geoffrey Gould), a 1920s Southern pastor driven mad by racial hate and fear. In huge and blotting black brush strokes, Baldvin commits to pages and pages of grimy, crumpled cels the entrails of Reitman's worsening paranoia at proud black men, anchored by the increasing panic heard in Gould's whispering of excerpts from his memoir. The quivering of frame-by-frame animation, usually an innocent signifier of laborious effort and craft, come to symbolise the preacher being wracked by his own insanity. The spate of images Baldvin makes tremble in this instability is utterly awe-inspiring: visions of black suns, smiling faces, street boxers with muscles drawn in repulsive curls of flesh, all each passing through time in the discordant ebbs and flows of an unstable mind (unsurprisingly, he's adapting an H.P. Lovecraft story next). It swept through the festival audience like a cold wind, and any chance to be hushed by its strobe-lit terror should not be missed.

Wednesday September 23, 2015 Nordisk Panorama win Attaching the online article, Einar announced another film festival win!: Happy to announce that The Pride of Strathmoor won the "Best Nordic Short" Award at Nordisk Panorama. Thank you everyone who helped along the way, and thank you Geoffrey Gould and Atli Arnarson for your tremendous work on the film. Thank you Sweden as well not only for hosting this festival but for giving us the twin cultural treasures of ABBA and Ingmar Bergman. Best Nordic Short Film Award Winner: The Pride of Strathmoor | Einar Baldvin Motivation: This film is a visually stunning depiction of horror. The portrait, not even hundred years old, evokes a sense of present relevance and timelessness. It visualizes an inner fear built on prejudice, which provides human mind with reasons to kill. The film literally grabbed us by the core. It is a profound piece of very skilfully implemented work, that manages to create a dense emotional landscape -vibrant, atmospheric and very scary. Watching the film becomes an unsettling, almost physical experience. The sound design supports the powerful images, making this distorted, expressionistic nightmare complete. Jury: Daniel Vadocky, Head of Sales / National Film Archive in Prague & Artfilmfest (Czech Republic / Slovakia) Kira Richards Hansen, Winner of the Best Nordic Short Film Award 2014 (Denmark) Paola Ruggeri, Head of Short Films / Rti Spa (Itlay) About the award: The Best Nordic Short Film Award is presented by the short film jury to one of the 14 films in the Nordic Short Film Competition. The prize-winning film will qualify for consideration in the Short Film Category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided that the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules. The award goes to the director of the film. The prize sum of 7,000 € is sponsored by the Nordic director's associations Danish Film Directors, Directors Guild of Finland, Guild of Icelandic Film Directors, Norwegian Film Makers Association and Swedish Film Directors. 14 short films compete for the Nordic Short Film Award.

Pride of Strathmoor wins Best Nordic Short at 2015 Nordisk Panorama film festival

Best Nordic Short Film Award goes to The Pride of Strathmoor by @Einar_Baldvin #nordiskpanorama #NPAwards https://t.co/vhLo1SvJln — Nordisk Panorama (@NordiskPanorama) September 22, 2015

Monday October 26, 2015 Online Einar conveyed that The Pride of Strathmoor short was online, promoted at the shortoftheweek.com website, also at which, Einar neglected to mention, the same site interviewed him about the award-winning short. Although omitting the film's vocal references, the interview article focuses on the impressive production of the film, both in its compelling artistry and its storyline.

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