House Guests
Any good family gathering needs a couple of visitors to relieve the dreariness of the same old faces and to remind the participants that there is a world beyond the confines of their home. This year the honors fell to festival judge Thomas Mayer-Hermann and workshop presenter Geert Van Goethem. Meyer-Herman, whose Studio Film Bilder has consistently pushed the creation of art shorts while funding these creations with a variety of commercial animation endeavours, showed off a series of very good shorts, including the chilling Annecy winner The Runt by Andreas Hykade, Phil Mulloy's satirical parable The Final Solution, and Creation, Mayer-Herman's own tongue-in-cheek sendup of Genesis. Van Goethem's S.O.I.L. group has been methodically working on animating Belgian poetry and two of their works, Bruised and With My Quantum Stroke, were selected as the best nonnarrative films -- ex aequo.

The Audio Guide meandered through the exhibition halls of the protagonist's brain, with a constant internal monologue turned oddly objective. Courtesy of I Castelli Animati.

Often, after the midnight screenings, the festival protagonists would gather in the hotel lobby for a "laptop showcase" -- a friendly show-and-tell of current and past works, with no rules, no mom and no dad. Smuggled wine was provided by Nancy Phelps, who presented an inspiring history of animation workshops and was also one of the festival judges.

Return of the Prodigal Sons
The culminating event of the festival was really the reunion of four of the original crew who made Bruno Bozzetto's 1976 Allegro Non Troppo. Joining Bozzetto was animation great Giuseppe Lagana, Maurizio Nichetti, who played the enchained animator, and Maurizio Micheli, who played the Presenter. This work, which was shown in an impeccable 35mm print, stands up even today. Nichetti related how they came up with the idea of having an orchestra composed of old folks -- a combination of a discussion in the van during location scouting and the fortuitous discovery of a retirement home nearby.

Cut! That's a Wrap!
There were some minor inconveniences. Cinecitta is on the outskirts of Rome, so it became a struggle to get into the city and see the sights, if one so wished. The use of the Cinecitta commissary, good as it was, left one with the desire to sample another trattoria, and the segregation of festival visitors from the invited guests at mealtimes was not in the spirit of things.

Italo-Argentine animation pioneer Quirino Cristiani is the subject of a book and a new movie entitled Quirino Cristiani: The Mystery of the First Animated Movies. © Gabriele Zucchelli.

Festival organizers are coy as to whether the festival will remain in Rome. This is critical for Castelli Animati's identity. There is no intention necessarily to keep it at Cinecitta, but the old location lacked a good theater and the hotel infrastructure to allow the festival to grow. (Castelli Animati is not the only festival in this sort of quandary.) Another factor affecting festival identity is the balkanization of media, from mobile phones to 4D and vfx, which strains festivals to try to be all things to all festivalgoers. Often festivals leave our harried protagonist with the uneasy sensation that he has missed something that was going on in the other room. This festival remains a wonderful occasion for the free flow of ideas in the same living room, and we hope it remains such.

In the end, there was a sorrow to be returning to the cubicles and rat burrows where animation is made. There is a sense of warmth and belonging at this festival that is hard to find elsewhere. Most of all, it's a living room for a very likable family.

Russell Bekins has served time in story and project development for Creative Artists Agency and Disney. He now lives in Bologna, Italy, where he specializes in concept design for theme park, aquarium and museum installations.