Ishu Patel

ISHU PATEL is an acclaimed animation film director, animator and educator whose films have received theatrical and television distribution worldwide. His many international awards include two Oscar Nominations, the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the British Academy Award, and the Grand Prix at both Annecy and the Montreal World Film Festival.

Born in Gujarat, India, Ishu Patel graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.University, Baroda and completed his graduate studies in Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and advanced Graphic Design at Allegemeine Gewerbschule in Basel, Switzerland. A Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship brought him to the National Film Board of Canada.

Under the NFB banner, developing his own animation techniques Ishu Patel produced and directed numerous award-winning films such as The Bead Game, Afterlife, Top Priority, Divine Fate and Paradise.

In addition to his films for the NFB, Ishu Patel has co-produced animation with NHK of Japan and Channel Four of Britain, and contributed numerous French-language segments to “Sesame Street” for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Formerly a tenured professor at the School of Cinema and Television, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, he is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ishu Patel presently has his studio, Image par Image, in Canada where he continues to produce animation projects compatible with his styles and techniques. Recently completed projects include four TV spots for Nippon Oil of Japan (ENEOS), and a 60 second TV spot, “Moondust”, for the United Airlines Beijing Olympic campaign, “It’s Time to Fly”.

– This biography was replicated from the artist’s personal website.

Bead Game, 1977

Synopsis from NFB: In this animated short, thousands of beads are arranged and manipulated, assuming shapes of creatures both mythical and real. They continually devour, merge, and absorb one another in explosions of color.

Afterlife, 1978

Synopsis from NFB: This animated short film attempts to answer the eternal questions, What is dying? and How does it feel? Based on recent studies, case histories and some of the ancient myths, the afterlife state is portrayed as an awesome but methodical working-out of all the individual’s past experiences. Film without words.