Year: 1978
Format: 16mm Colour
Runtime: 7 min
Director: Ishu Patel
Producer: Derek Lamb
Cinematographer: Ishu Patel
Editor: Ishu Patel
Animation: Ishu Patel
Music: Herbie Mann, David Mills
Cinematographer: Georges Dufaux
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada

This multiple award-winning animated short film from Indian-born Ishu Patel uses an innovative technique – back-lit Plasticine – to offer an impressionistic and visionary response to the eternal questions about dying, the nature of death and the existence of an afterlife. Patel’s film, partially based on studies and case histories that provide evidence of life after death, blends modern and ancient beliefs and transcultural myths. The result is an afterlife state portrayed as an awesome but methodical process of coming to terms with all the individual’s past experiences.

Afterlife won the Grand Prize (Short Film) at the Montreal World Film Festival, as well as a Canadian Film Award for Best Animated Film.