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National Film Board of Canada

Shira Avni, MFA

  • Associate Professor (Film Animation), Cinema

Research areas: Neurodiversity, motherhood, animation, animated documentary, under camera animation, clay animation, direct animation, community based animation, autism, gender and neurodiversity, Down syndrome, maternal health, diversity, inclusion, social justice animation

Contact information

Email:

shira.avni@concordia.ca

Availability:

Please note that as a neurodivergent faculty member, I much prefer email contact to telephone, and rarely check voicemail.

My office hours are Wednesday 10-12, by appointment only. Please email me at least 48 hours in advance. Thank you!

Websites:

National Film Board of Canada Director's Page
Two One Two Film Trailer
Two One Two Festival Page

Biography

Award-winning, neurodivergent animation filmmaker Shira Avni holds an MFA in Film/Video/New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2003). She has been creating animated shorts with the National Film Board of Canada since 1997, where she has directed four films and assisted on a number of other projects. Her research has been supported by the National Film Board of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Frameline, and Bravo!FACT. Avni's earlier films Petra's Poem (2012), Tying Your Own Shoes (2009), John and Michael (2005), and From Far Away (2000) garnered over 30 grants and awards, including the prestigious DOK Leipzig Golden Dove and the NHK Japan Prize, and have screened in over 120 festivals worldwide, as well as on CBC, PBS, Bravo, and TV5 television networks.

Her most recent film, Two One Two (2023), has won 16 international awards and 7 nominations to date, including the Special Jury Prize at the Sommets du Cinéma d'animation,  Best Animated Short Film at the Berlin Short Film Festival, the Nonviolence Award at Ann Arbor, Best Documentary Microshort at Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation and Technology, as well as a Golden Sheaf Award nomination, with over 125 film festival screenings worldwide.

Avni is the proud recipient of a 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award at Concordia, where she teaches Under Camera animation, Animated Documentary, and Advanced Animation Filmmaking classes. Her current research weaves documentary, animation, and personal memoir to address neurodiversity, identity, social justice, motherhood, and interdependence through luminous clay-on-glass animation, back-lit to create the shimmering effect of stained glass in motion.

Two One Two Poster 2024

Shira Avni

Two One Two

Shira Avni, 2023

Still from the film John and Michael

National Film Board of Canada, 2005

Still from the film John and Michael

Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

Tying Your Own Shoes

Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

Tying Your Own Shoes

Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

Petra's Poem

Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

Teaching activities

Teaching

Shira Avni regularly teaches the Advanced Animation, Animated Documentary, and Under Camera Animation courses, and is the course coordinator for Advanced Animation. She has also taught Analytical Drawing for Animation, Introduction and Intermediate Animation.

While the Film Animation Program is solely an Undergraduate program, Avni co-supervises or serves on the Masters committee for MFA students in all areas of the Fine Arts.

Area of Expertise

Film Animation, Under Camera Animation, Animated Documentary

Video links

Two One Two Trailer

Tying Your Own Shoes

Tying Your Own Shoes by Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

Tying Your Own Shoes is an intimate glimpse into the exceptional mindsets and emotional lives of four adult artists with Down Syndrome. An artful, four-way essay about ability, this animated film explores how it feels to be a little bit unusual.

John and Michael

John and Michael by Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada

John and Michael pays homage to two men with Down's syndrome who shared an intimate and profoundly loving relationship that deeply affected the filmmaker. Animated with clay backlit on glass, the film shimmers like stained glass in motion.

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