ASPARAGUS
(20 min. 35mm film and video) 1979

This candy coloured nightmare rocked audiences upon its release and catapulted maker Suzan Pitt to the front ranks of indie animation. Stunning cel animation propels its blank-faced protagonist into the world of the phallus, rendered here as a field of asparagus, which she deep throats, excretes and flushes away...The film's stunning set piece occurs before a claymation audience who gape as the artist opens her Medusa's box to release rare wonders. A moving meditation on art and the cost of reproduction, Asparagus remains, twenty-five years after its release, a benchmark of single frame intensity.

"...the extraordinary ASPARAGUS, one of the most lavish and wondrous animated shorts ever made, an overwhelming visual experience."
- John Cannemaker

"The animation constitutes one of the most important works of imagination seen in some time, filled with every possible animation technique, all exquisitely rendered, all calculated to produce incredible wonder in the heart of the viewer. It is a children's fairy tale for adults."
- B. Ruby Rich

"One of the most adventurous animators working in America today."
- Diane Jacobs

FIRST PRIZE - Oberhausen International Film Festival

FIRST PRIZE - Atlanta Independent Film and Video Festival

FIRST PRIZE - Baltimore Film Festival

FIRST PRIZE - Ann Arbor Film Festival