Ishu Patel - Career

Career

A Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship brought Ishu Patel to the National Film Board of Canada to study animation filmmaking for a year, and in 1972 he joined the NFB. For twenty-five years under the NFB mandate Ishu Patel produced and directed personal animated films, and mentored young filmmakers. There he developed several notable techniques: the technique of multiple passes and variable exposures he employed for the abstract film Perspectrum; the under-lit plasticene technique used in Afterlife and Top Priority; under-lit pin holes with multiple passes developed for the film Paradise; and the procedures for moving thousands of tiny beads under an ever zooming camera as in Bead Game.

He co-produced animation with NHK of Japan and Channel Four of Britain, and contributed many French language segments to Sesame Street for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His many international awards include the British Academy Award, two Oscar nominations, the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and Grand Prix at the Montreal World Film Festival. He is particularly known for his 1977 film Bead Game which was nominated for an Academy Award.