SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW: You will shimmer and shake, like you’re riding the snake while being wowed by the dynamite animated short A Flame The Colour of Air, by talented Canadian filmmaker Emily Pelstring. The narration, done by Jessica Mensch, is composed of quotes from Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval Catholic mystic and healer. Her voice softly recites the revelations of von Bingen, such as a woman’s pleasure is like sunlight, with a constant radiating warmth that makes the Earth fruitful.
We see lights dancing in the darkness, first forming a devout nun in prayer, then twisting and evolving into nearly neon imagery. A serpent coiling through the cosmos slithers towards the giant glowing celestial body of a nude woman. The serpent gets up in that Milky Way, and that’s just the beginning. Nature and the divine are joined with female carnal desire, until the galaxy itself is grinding that a*s against the pants of creation.
“You will shimmer, and shake, like your riding the snake…”
The animation in A Flame The Colour of Air totally rocks. Every shimmering line of the drawings throbbed with an electric glow. Pelstring uses a dark backdrop and then puts figures with outlines made of light in front of it. I cannot figure out how she does this, no matter what I try smoking. It is similar to a Lite Brite, but with an ethereal flow. The technique is infectious; I could watch anything done in this flash behind the sky style.
So that makes the audience doubly lucky that Pelstring put her craft to outstanding use in A Flame The Colour of Air. The words and imagery concoct some of the darnedest things. The reverence of the mystic’s awe of a woman’s sexual desire adds extra sting to the beauty of the graphic imagery. It may seem odd for a visionary pilgrimage to sneak into a peep show, but you’ll get used to it quickly. Serious fans of both animation and envelope pushing will flock to A Flame The Colour of Air.
"…Serious fans of both animation and envelope pushing will flock to "
