A recent film festival in Italy recognized the work of a Creighton professor among its top submissions.

Tim Guthrie, associate professor of journalism, was praised for his animated short film “Recalling Trinity” in the Italian-based aniMOweb Fourth edition interactive animation contest. Among 56 participants from 27 different countries in the short animated movies category, Guthrie’s film placed third at the March 11 awards ceremony in Modena, Italy.

The theme of the contest, “Conflicts: The Cult of War and the Culture of Peace,” inspired Guthrie to create a Flash-animated film about the first nuclear explosion at Los Alamos on July 16, 1945. “Recalling Trinity” couples animation with the words of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, as he remembers the moment of the Trinity test several years after the nuclear explosion.

The film includes Oppenheimer’s memorable comparison of the explosion to a quote from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds.”

Guthrie said that a recent trip to a testing site in Nevada, where more than 1,000 nuclear tests have been run, first piqued his interest in the testing of the atom bomb.

“I’ve got this weird obsession with nuclear testing lately… Certain things that have been going on in the world and the government’s reaction to them has gotten me even more obsessed with it,” Guthrie said.

Though the overall message of “Recalling Trinity” may be slightly vague in the film, Guthrie said his subtlety was no accident. Not wanting to force certain beliefs on his audience, Guthrie said he intended his film to be more thought-provoking than persuasive.

“It kind of questions the intelligence of having these weapons in the first place, as Oppenheimer did, and whether they really solve problems or create them,” Guthrie said.

In addition to placing third in the aniMOweb contest, “Recalling Trinity” took first place last weekend at a local animation competition, the Hot Shops Film Festival. Another one of Guthrie’s films, “A War Dream,” won second place at that same festival.

Despite such success, Guthrie’s interest in animated films is actually new. “Recalling Trinity” was his first serious attempt at filmmaking. Guthrie, who hails from a fine arts background, got away from painting and sculpting after immersing himself in graphic design at Creighton. His Flash-animated films, which are basically hand-painted frame by frame, have become a way of revisiting some of his other artistic abilities.

“The films give me a re-attachment back to painting that I lost just doing graphics,” Guthrie said. “I’m interested in trying to create something that gets information across and tells a story, and film was just a natural medium for that.”

An artistic jack-of-all-trades, Guthrie is working on his next project, a collaborative multimedia exhibit at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts that once again visits nuclear politics.

“If you’ve got an interest or passion in something, just put everything you’ve got into it and enjoy the process,” Guthrie said.

When “Nuclear Dichotomies” debuts at the Bemis Underground, it will include his film “Recalling Trinity” along with origami, digital photography, video projections and sculptures to visually recreate every U.S. nuclear bomb test. The collaborative show — which will also feature Guthrie’s brother, Ken — will run from Aug. 11 through Sep. 16. Guthrie’s films and further information about his upcoming projects can be found at his Web site, www.timguthrie.com.