Gerry Fournier's I'm Busy (1999) also broke up the audience. Igor Kovalyov (currently working at Klasky Csupo in Hollywood) has Flying Nansen in a program directly following. Flying Nansen is a well-animated explorer of the Arctic. Igor's film is masterful and may be based on a true story. The snow-blown epic slips into absurdity and seems not to get out before it wraps up. Nansen is eleven minutes of animation pleasure. Eventi Italiani: Cuccioli by Sergio Manfio (2000). Sergio is a well-known Italian animator and artist.

After this competition program an episode of The Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror X," edizione Italiana; meaning, the Simpsons speak Italian on the soundtrack.

A later competition/Concorso Internazionale features Andreas Hykade's Ring of Fire, made in Germany (2000). This is a stupendous movie, in wide screen, black and white, full of cowboy bad behaviour, sexual imagery, big music, eye popping combinations of drawn and computer animation, more sexual imagery and an overall effect of grand scale animation production. For the Birds, by Ralph Eggleston of Pixar Studios (2000), was an audience favorite. Much laughing after this one.

Le Chapeau by Michéle Cournoyer (1999), made in Canada, is another strong black and white production. Sexual abuse is the theme, or is it? Beautifully made using painted line, The Hat (in English), depicts an exotic dancer with references to her childhood and the men in her current audience and leaves much for any viewer of this film to contemplate prior to forming an opinion.

Julian Nott, composer of music for the Nick Park Wallace and Gromit short films, was given another retrospective program today, by now 10:55 pm, with the screening of two Mark Baker directed films: The Village and Jolly Roger. Julian's music is just right for these films. Both pictures are great examples of Baker's humour range and both gentlemen prove themselves to be wonderful and sympathetic collaborators. The Village is lush and quietly funny with slow dawning messages about crime and human errors. The music never gets in the way and is simple and only helps the story told without dialogue. Jolly Roger is a much less complicated story, very funny, broad and noisy with fighting, action scenes and bombastic music by Julian Nott. A great pair of films.

The evening ended with more Italian coming out of the mouths of the Simpsons.

This year's I Castelli Animati International Animated Film Festival program.

Day 4: 7^th of October 2000
Although there is an event scheduled for tomorrow -- Convegno: C'e in Italia, 'Un futuro molte animato' (which seems to mean, 'In Italy one future with many animators,' which seems to be the same future coming to the rest of the world) -- this day is actually the final day of I Castelli Animati 2000.

Rumours fly concerning the possible appearance of Paul McCartney, a famous musician who played guitar in a band called Wings. Before he was good enough to play in Wings he cut his chops in an earlier band called, The Beatles. Paul is the executive producer of a new animated film directed by Oscar Grillo, the well-known Argentine born London, England-based animator and director. The film, Shadow Cycle, is based on music composed by the late Linda McCartney, who was married to Paul prior to her too early death by cancer. The film is not completed and this will be a first test screening before an audience.

Killing of an Egg, part of the Paul Driessen retrospective, begins the day. It is a simple idea, two and a half minutes long with voices in English, but with a very Italian accent, exactly how Paul made it in 1977. For some audience members this audio twist added spice to the screening. Later in the day, Veliki Miting, directed by Walter and Norbert Neugebauer in 1951, in Croatia, is shown to an audience unaffected by the propaganda in the film. An animator who worked on the picture, Milan Goldschmiedt, was interviewed by Luca Raffaelli. Veliki Miting's soundtrack was all in Croatian and the following interview was all in Italian.