9:25 p.m.	Animals Nicholas Philibert (France, 1995)

(Un Animal, des animaux). For over thirty years the Zoology Hall of the Museum of Natural History in Paris was closed to the public while thousands of stuffed animals—mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, crustaceans—were abandoned inside. Animals wittily documents the Hall's renovation, recording the three years of intense, detail-driven preparation to bring the various inhabitants back to "life." Philibert subtly delights in the dedication of the zoologists as they go about their tasks—they are as passionate about what they do as any artist. Meanwhile, the animals take on an odd symbolic life of their own, their vacant faces providing a wry commentary on the various processes that revolve around them. An incisive testimony to the human desire, or compulsion, to preserve and document.

—Lisanne Skyler, S.F. Int'l Film Festival, 1995

• Photographed by Frédéric Labourasse, Philibert. (59 mins, In French with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, Courtesy French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)