The Palazzo Re Enzo is once again host to an exchange of East and West, for the Future Film Festival. Medieval battles play themselves out again as the epic struggle between animation and live action. All images courtesy of Future Film Festival.

The Past as Container of the Future
Once upon a time in the city-state of Bologna, the army marched forth to do battle with the forces of the Emperor. They won a great victory that day, carrying away the King of Sardinia, Re Enzo, and held him hostage in a tower-house in the center of the city. Cultured and urbane, Enzo whiled away his time in a sort of house arrest, writing poetry and engaging in love affairs, and occasionally trying to escape. Enzo had grown up in the most cosmopolitan court in Europe, in Palermo, where philosophical and literary gifts were prized, and tolerance of the Arab minority allowed a free-flowing exchange of ideas from east and west. He became the center of a salon of artists and intellectuals who frequented his prison home, where he died after 23 years, in 1272.

The Future Converges with the Past
The Palazzo Re Enzo is once again host to an exchange of East and West, for the Future Film Festival. Medieval battles of Guelf and Ghibelline, pope and emperor, play themselves out again as the epic struggle between animation and live action. Once again the palazzo rings with poetry and love, with salons of intellectuals and exotic guests, from which your dedicated reporter occasionally felt like escaping...

But only to see more films, naturally.

Oh, and have a plate of tortelloni ai fungi porcini e tartufo and a bit of that sangiovese superiore riserva wine. This is "Fat Bologna" after all, and I have the paunch to prove it.

Stop talking about food.

All right. What makes the Future Film Festival unique is its dedication to both animation and digital effects. The festival celebrates convergence, as opposed to other festivals that struggle with the issue. Now in its 10th incarnation, this year's fest featured a competition that played five animation films against five live-action films in which there was some element of digital effects.

Festival organizers Oscar Cosulich and Giulietta Fara both muster strong arguments as to why they believe in putting live action and animation head-to-head. "There are festivals of animation and festivals for live action; we are the only one that makes no distinction," asserts Cosulich. "Animation is not a genre, but a technique, like a lens or high definition. There is no [mainstream] film without digital effects, nor animation without digital enhancement. The future is simply more mixed, neither black nor white."

Wow. How does that square with the strict delimitation between mo-cap and "pure" animation? Will our friend Gene Dietch read this and take after them with an HB pencil? Are these guys serious, or is this just more convergence malarkey? Is this wide-eyed puerile enthusiasm for the future really happening on the old continent? Is this like a scene from GE's "Carousel of Progress," where we're all waiting for the refrain "It's a great, big beautiful tomorrow... "?

Enough with the rhetorical questions.

Um... yes. In fact, one has the feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff to be seen at the Future Film Festival: 10 films in competition, 17 out of competition; 157 shorts in 10 programs; presentations from Blue Sky, ILM and Pixar; roundtable discussions; homage programs to Toei Animation, Latin America, Spain, and Halas and Batchelor (the British animation team that husbanded Animal Farm). I have left out a great deal in this unreadable sentence, but there are limits to human patience.

Truer words were never spoken.

With so much happening, I had to split myself in two, and send my alter ego off to watch some of the screenings I couldn't attend. That's why he chimes in sometimes. Call him Enzo.

Re Enzo to you.

Humor us.

Manga Bologna!
The Future Film Festival has a long tradition of presenting high-level Japanese animation films. This year's offering, curated lovingly by Luca Della Casa, included the presence of Madhouse Studio producer Masao Maruyama (see sidebar, next page) and the European premiere of Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Highlander; four of 10 films in competition, as well as three of the 17 out of competition, were Japanese as well. A series of programs showcasing Japanese TV shows and an homage to the groundbreaking work of Toei Animation rounded out the bill. It was no accident, therefore, that both winners of this year's festival were of Japanese import.

The winner of the Special Mention, Tekkonkinkreet, is an anomalous piece whose every frame is a study in contrasts: simply drawn yet expressive characters over an amazingly textured urban jungle; tender boys with incredible powers to scale buildings and put the fear into tough yakuza hoods; animated cops and bad guys who spout surprising dialogue; Hindu and Balinese decor in what seems an old-fashioned Japanese slum. The eye happily wanders through every setting, noting details such as the ragged edges of chairs in a run-down strip club, the way a pile of junk is organized and what it says about the characters.