Stuttgart 2007: One of the Great Animation Festivals in the World
The Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (Germany, April 26 -May 1, 2007) is one of the largest and main international competitive animation festivals on the global animation circuit.
I revisited the festival this year to report my impressions about the animations, the filmmakers, the events and the atmosphere. This year, one couldn't help commenting upon the weather, as well as the films!
Everyone seemed elated by the high summer temperatures, sunshine and everlasting pale-blue skies with no hint of clouds. Wonderfully animated films, great animators and guests, workshops, food, drink, discussion, parties: all these elements combined alchemically with the fantastic weather to create an especially vibrant atmosphere and joyful mood.
The scene was set for a summer feast of animation. It all takes place in the picturesque inner-city setting of Stuttgart. Five main cinema venues located very centrally allow animation enthusiasts to venture right into the heart of the city. Everything connected to the festival is within short walking distance. Just a two-minute walk from the cinemas we find the Festival Lounge which hosts guests and professionals with brunches, filmmaker talks, official functions as well as impromptu parties after the late-night programs.
From there we also have a direct view of the large outdoor screen and nightly Open Air animation. Aptly named the Festival Garden, this setting adjoins a main square flanked by a castle and a museum. During the day, people sit on the grass lawns and catch some sun. Every evening, the free shows of concerts and animation outdoors in this festive and social atmosphere of music, food, drink and films, introduces the animation to a general public who might otherwise never have gone to see them.
The complete festival offers a very wide range of programs with a great diversity of films to see. This year, Stuttgart had attracted more than 1600 submissions of animations and the various programs screened more than 500 films from more than 40 countries. These range from animation shorts in the main "International Competition," the "Young Animation" or student competition, animated feature films, animated series, to supporting animation programs selected for the "Best of Animation" and "Panorama" sessions, as well as the "Tricks for Kids" show with a workshop for children to create their own animations. Plus, there are professional workshops, schools and studio presentations, and a range of special interest programs, for example, films from the Cartoon d'Or and Prix Ars Electronica, amongst others.
International Competition Any filmmakers who have shown their animation films at a festival will know that a full cinema generates a tangible sense of excitement and anticipation. A responsive audience is important for the works and to their filmmakers and may be a reward in itself. But significantly, festivals such as Stuttgart provide necessary distribution opportunities for short animations and independent features as well as networking mechanisms for the filmmakers and other animation industry professionals.
In the cinema setting, watching the animated films becomes a social experience, continuing beyond the screenings in discussions, conversations and later reflections, providing an abundance of things to communicate to others. A few highlights from the competition programs were:
Suzan Pitt's animation El Doctor (USA, 2006, 24 min.) is a surrealist tale where atmospheric painted backgrounds lend a sumptuous edge to the setting of a crumbling Mexican hospital. We discover an absurdist and intriguing view of life, death and miracles through the tormented eyes of a drunken doctor, conveyed with a bizarre sense of melancholy and humor.
Florence Miailhe's animation Conte de Quartier (France/Canada, 2006, 15:36 min.) uses mixed animation techniques ranging from drawings, cutouts and frame-by-frame painting, creating painterly, ever-changing and surprising images. It tells a tangled adventure of a woman, a leopard, a dog, a boy, a doll and a treasure box, in a fantastical city setting.
The main international competitions screen to a full house each evening as the 560 seated cinema is filled to absolute capacity with some extra standing room. The main competition is then repeated while the student competition also fills the cinema next door. It's pertinent to note the popularity of these screenings, not just as a reflection on the festival's amazing success in terms of audience, but also on the extraordinary inventiveness of animation as a powerful visual medium of communication that makes audiences receptive to it. It indicates that there is a wider audience interested in the artistic animation film and more unusual works, such as shown in the competitions. This is a credit to the overall programming strategy, as well as to the selection of films at Stuttgart.
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