“HA’Aki” is a short abstract-impressionist film in which the animation and the music were made simultaneously in an organic process of symbiotic creativity. Film maker Iriz Pääbo tells the highly subjective story of a complete hockey game using a new cinematic vocabulary she calls “animbits”. Päabo readily admits she is not the biggest fan of “Canada’s national game”, so the great, though highly under-appreciated NHL stalwart of the 60s and 70s, Eric Nesterenko, was her hockey muse in this artistic journey. “HA’Aki” is a lyrical and wonderfully unorthodox interpretation of hockey as played in the mind of a lyrical and wonderfully unorthodox animation artist.
Technique 2D and 3D animation.

Iriz Pääbo (CA) has directed, animated, edited and written music for the independent animated films "I've Got a Little Brother", "My Quills Click When I Wal"k, "Bon Vivant", and "Wake Up/Wake Up". Her 1991 breakthrough film, "Leaving the Poisons Behind", aired nationally in Canada and Australia and was screened at festivals in Los Angeles, Leipzig and Uppsala, "tecknicly Inkorect" (1996) was broadcast on Teletoon and screened at the prestigious Annecy and Goteborg festivals. She previously made the award-winning short "Loon Dreaming", for the NFB in 2002. Iriz has participated in a number of group shows, including the Tom Thomson Gallery, Scarborough Arts Centre, Queen’s University and Deleon White Gallery. She had four solo shows between 1997 and 2000, including one at Northrop Frye Hall at the University of Toronto’s Victoria University.