University Calendar

Italian-American artist and animator Andrea Mastrovito will be presenting his most recent project NYsferatu, an ambitious public art project that combines film, music, and community engagement to create a powerful and poignant statement about immigrant rights in today’s world. Taking the first step in this lengthy process, Mastrovito and a team of artists, hand animated Friedrich W. Murnau’s seminal 1922 film Nosferatu, itself an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story, Dracula. Using the technique of rotoscoping, each character, gesture, and expression has been redrawn in the original film’s classic style while the background of contemporary New York City brings the film to the current moment. Each recreated background has been drawn 3 times in order to replicate the beautifully eerie flickering shutter effect of early cinema. In all, the artist has made over 35,000 original drawings to create this feature length hand-animated film.