Chris, I like to read your articles, with some irritation now and then. I like narcism a lot. My heroes Salvador Dali, Frank Zappa and Roman Polanski are all full of themselves. I only said that if you think that narcism is a bad motivation, then you should stop writing your articles. I allways send my films to any festival that likes to show my work, panorama or competition or whatever because I'm so narcistic that I want everybody to see my films, so I'm only talking in a general sense. I can imagine that someone is so convinced that he made a masterpiece, that he doesn't like to see it in a program full of mediocre films. And about the parotsquad. There are some examples of festivals that rejected my film in the first place and then selected it after they saw that it was in the Annecy competition. Isn't that parot behavior? Cheers, Hisko

Umm...I dont know what the heck half of you are saying...but, hey, thanks for taking the time. As for Mr. Hulsing... as I've written him personally... the notion that festival directors are parrots is absolute nonsense considering that almost all ani. fests have selection committees. Thus.. fest. directors have no direct connection with the choices made. About narcissermirism...read the last line of the article. I aint never said I was mr. prefect.

Good. But I also think that this consideration referring the community of artist could be applied to some community of selection commitee members trying not loosing an alley in way of selecting shorts.Selection is under human-mistakes of course. But isn´t this a professional job? And isn´t it Annecy one of the most important festival in the world?

Good article and perfectly agree. But without exagerating,doubts are legitimate about the selection system. I remember good excluded like "Brothers" by Julio Del Rio and unbelieveble choice like "Electronic performers" ( "WM Player" playing Air finishing in an Utero? ) or "Dies Irae" ( 9:50 min. of downloaded highways from internet leading to Auschwitz = easy meaning with no animation at all?). And don´t want to remember 40 min of a shot to a 3D nocturnal sea and then a ship crossing the screen and crashing off an iceberg in 2001 edition. No polemic statement, but just honest doubts. Thanks.

Being shown in a panoramasection gives a film a second-rate status that can ruin the career of a film, since a lot of festivaldirectors behave like parots. For that reason I can imagine that someone withdraws a film. Besides that I don't understand your problem. If a film is withdrawn you can allways choose another film to fill the hole. No one will notice. Approval and acceptance are the best reasons to submit a film. Allthough we can't get groupies and blowjobs on these groovy animationfestivals, fortunately there is allways a lot of back patting. If you really believe that narcism is a bad motivation, you should stop writing these articles since they are mostly about YOU.

Great article.