Lipsett Diaries

Lipsett Diaries is a descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented famed Canadian experimental filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, who died prematurely at age 49. Taking the form of a diary, this animated film by Theodore Ushev charts the meanderings of psychological distress, with clashes of images and sounds evoking the loneliness of the artist’s childhood, his frenzied creations and his dizzying descent into depression and madness. Drawing, as Lipsett did, from archives of diverse origins, even recycling segments of Lipsett’s films, Ushev renews his aesthetic by using paint and crayon on paper, to which he applies digital treatments. The result is both spectacular and daring: a fragmented and fascinating short film that plunges us into the whirlwind of a mind out of balance. A collaboration between Ushev and writer Chris Robinson, Lipsett Diaries is a singular study of what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.