Cryptozoo. 2021. Written and directed by Dash Shaw

Film

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Held on Sat, Nov 13, 2021, 2:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

Cryptoozoo. 2021. USA. Written and directed by Dash Shaw. Courtesy Magnolia Pictures

Cryptozoo. 2021. USA. Written and directed by Dash Shaw. With Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Emily Davis. 95 min.

Tickets for in-person films are available to members at the Explore category and above beginning two weeks before each screening. Additional tickets will be released, to members as well as the general public, one week before each screening.

Comic artist Dash Shaw (creator of the cult graphic novel Bottomless Belly Button and the 2016 film My Entire High School Is Sinking into the Sea) builds a kaleidoscopic world through intricate hand-drawn animation in this exploration of interspecies relationships and human greed. In 1970s California, a hippie couple deep in the forest stumble upon a Cryptozoo—an enclosure where conservationist Joan (Grace Zabriskie) has gathered a pastiche of mythical creatures, known as cryptids, from the world over. Meanwhile, Lauren (Lake Bell), a veterinarian with a special childhood connection to the gentle, dream-eating cryptid Baku, searches for the missing creature before it falls into the hands of the military. Among the most visually innovative animated films in recent memory, Cryptozoo uses a beautifully rendered world to navigate moral ambiguity and ideas of utopia.

This film accompanies The Contenders 2021.

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