Lejf Marcussen in Person Presented in cooperation with the San Francisco Chapter of ASIFA. Danish animator Lejf Marcussen, winner of, among other honors, the prestigious Norman McLaren Heritage Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, has been making films since 1973, mostly under the auspices of Radio-Danoise. Using animation and various other optical aids, he makes films that have been described as "a revolt against the rule of language in cinema, a fusion of motion, imagery and music" (scores by Mahler, Berlioz, Nielsen and others). He has noted the influence of McLaren and Jacques Tati. If he shares with McLaren a sympathy between sound and motion, with Tati he shares a sly interest in finding out what happens when an idea is taken and developed with an increasing complexity to its conclusion; and a focus, sometimes brutally so, on the urban. In addition to a protest against the cinema of words, one can detect a protest against art criticism: in The Public Voice, for instance, artworks are being analyzed critically until one painting refuses to cooperate, forcing a more profound exploration. (Source: Donald McWilliams, ASIFA Canada, Vol. 17 #2)