Kia Simon, Motion Graphics Artist and Director
Kia's narrative films, music videos and documentaries have played in festivals all over the world. Her documentary Looking for Sly won awards for Best Short Doc at SXSW, LA International Short, and Tortured Artist Film Festival. Her music videos have been in rotation on MTV, and won awards from Zoie Fest and Berkeley Film Festival. The Pacific Pioneer Fund awarded her the Emerging Filmmaker Grant. Both PBS's video i and Varnish Art Gallery in San Francisco have presented retrospectives of her work. She participated in AFI's Women Director's Workshop and in Film Independent's Director's Lab and Fast Track Program.
Notable Projects:
Kabluey Created the opening title and credit animations for this feature film starring Lisa Kudrow and Directed by Scott Prendergast.
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone Created animated sequences for a series of historical sections in this feature documentary, and managed a team of illustrators and designers to meet an ambitious deadline.
Lipstique Directed this music video for San Francisco producer Silence Fiction, starring internationally famous drag queens including Fauxnique and Peaches Christ. Lipstique screened at festivals around the world including: Frameline, BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Milan GBLT Film Festival, Brussels Pink Screens, Southwest Lesbian and Gay and more.
Here's what other people say about her work: |
 THE
DIVE |
 |
Studio 360 on NPR
"The dancers...swoop and glide around
each other...as if...free falling through air,
Kia took that footage and digitally hand-manipulated
it, frame by frame, to blot out anything that
might resemble the earth or earthly things. So
you see no ground, no sky, no objects, the dancers
neither come nor go, they just float in a nameless
blue-white space"
|
The Toronto Star
The Dive was made by "painstakingly
painting bright colours over live-action film footage, to create
a new type of animation that resembles a dream state."
|
Katy Kavanaugh, Programmer
Screen 360 Film Festival
"Blithe dancers move fluidly in suspension-a sensational
anti-gravity experience set to equally ethereal music." |
Jean Schiffman, San Francisco Arts Monthly
"Dreamy, hypnotic."
Susan Gerhard, SF360
"The Dive goes underwater to reimagine a strangely beautiful death by skydiving."
|
|
 LOOKING
FOR SLY |
 |
Arne Johnson, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"A stunning portrait of a soul in the media centrifuge."
|
Robert Faires,
Austin Chronicle
"[An] unlikely odyssey without judgment or ridicule, giving
us a portrait of a thoughtful, gentle spirit realizing an American
Dream."
|
Filmmaker
Magazine
"The look at how one Armenian man’s life is changed
once he discovers his resemblance to Sylvester Stallone offers
damning commentary on the American dream factory." |
|
 THE
SWAY |
 |
Dan Heath, East Bay Express
"The track itself is haunting and melodious, and Simon
overlays it with a noirish visual narrative that fits perfectly."
|
 IN
PUBLIC SPACE |
Peter Crimmins, Berkeley Daily Planet
"A dance based on everyday glances and movements synchronized
into something exuberant." |
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