The international Cinetopia Film Festival took place over the weekend, from June 6-9, and for the first time included a program hosted by the Detroit Film Theatre. The festival, which has previously been based only in Ann Arbor has now expanded to include Detroit, and screened more than 40 feature-length movies, including 12 foreign language films and 11 documentaries. I attended The Painting, a full-length animated film that explores themes of class warfare between characters in a lushly rendered painting left unfinished by its painter. The ruling class of Alldunns superficially base their superiority on the fact that they were fully completed before the Master abandoned the painting, The narrator is a “Halfie” girl named Lola, who is only partially complete and therefore relegated to second-class citizenship. Most persecuted are the Sketchies, whose unfinished forms are both physically weak and brutally terrorized by the Alldunns.

Beauty is only paint-deep.

Though the movie’s themes are a little on the nose, The Painting more than makes up for it with stunning visuals, as we follow the main characters in and out of several paintings and through different layers of animation in their search for the painter that can erase the differences between them. The greater existential question of facing one’s creator is handled beautifully in a satisfying conclusion. The print screened at the DFT on Saturday night was dubbed to English, though the original is in French.

Lola, a Halfie, and Quill, a Sketchie.

The complete catalogue of films is too numerous to recount, but can be explored and previewed at the Cinetopia website. This festival marks the kickoff of the DFT’s regular summer schedule, which features a highly promising lineup for cinematic pleasure and beating the summer heat (should it ever arrive), including a regular Saturday Animation Club, offering English-dubbed and kid-friendly adventures into the world of animation.

Cheers to Cinetopia, and bring on the summer!

Detroit Film Theatre: 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7887; www.dia.org/detroitfilmtheatre/14/DFT.aspx.