ANIMA Brussels ushered in the year of the sheep in grand style with the Belgian premier of Shaun the Sheep Movie on their opening night. Aardman Studio is back doing what it does best, pure entertainment in flawless claymation. The 85 minute film brings Shaun and his fellow sheep to the big screen with all of the usual suspects from the television series.
ANIMA Brussels ushered in the year of the sheep in grand style with the Belgian premier of Shaun the Sheep Movie on their opening night. Aardman Studio is back doing what it does best, pure entertainment in flawless claymation. The 85 minute film brings Shaun and his fellow sheep to the big screen with all of the usual suspects from the television series.
The film opens with Shaun deciding that he wants to take a day off from the boring routine of barnyard life at Mossy Bottom Farm, but first he has to devise a plan to put The Farmer to sleep. The plan works better than expected when the trailer that The Farmer falls asleep in breaks loose and The Farmer, Blitzer the dog, Shaun, and the entire flock find themselves in the big city. What follows is pure slap stick comedy. There is delightful music and as in the TV series no dialogue which will make the film even more popular worldwide.
I am looking forward to watching the film again as I’m sure that I missed a lot of little details including clever sight gags. Even though the short television episodes are designed for young children (although my little film critic dog and I love them as I suspect many other adults do) Shaun the Sheep Movie is a film for the entire family. On opening night the adult audience provided lots of loud laughter throughout the screening. I have never seen an opening night audience at a festival with such big smiles on their faces when they left a film and the happy mood continued throughout the opening night party.
Usually I find watching feature length animation my least favorite part of a festival because if it is bad you are doomed to 90 minutes of wishing it were over. This year there was a record 21 features at ANIMA ranging from films for children to very serious adult topics. I am happy to say that many of the features were really good.
South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho has once again explored the dark side of Korean life in The Fake. His first film King of Pigs was set in an all boy’s middle school in Seoul. In the school’s harsh environment there is no escape from constant bullying and violence for the poorer boys by the rich snobs who have a sense of entitlement. The Fake, which Yeon Sang-ho wrote as well as directing, is a scathing critique of organized religion in Korea, a country known for having one of the world’s most active evangelical movements.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Cho Young Kag, producer of The Fake. I asked him if the film had been screened in South Korea and if so how was it received? He told me that it was shown in Seoul where church groups picketed it. They were angry because they couldn’t understand why the film picked on religion and the church when there is so much corruption in other areas of South Korean society.
Cho Young Kag said that religion is meant to be a metaphor for all forms of cruelty and corruption not just in South Korea but worldwide. He did say that many of the churches in his country are very corrupt, praying upon the faith of the poorest people who want to believe in something and clutch desperately at straws.
Yeon Sang-ho insisted on using a team of top comic book artists to create the soft, rich backgrounds that emphasize the raw, harsh look of the characters. The film opens with a chained up dog being brutally killed for no apparent reason except that the powerful person who owns the dog can order it killed and his henchman follows his orders. The film doesn’t get any easier to watch. There was not one single character that I liked in the film, not even the “hero” who was as cruel and brutal as everyone else. Mr. Cho told me that Yeon Sang-ho wanted the violence in The Fake to be even more raw and brutal, but the producer finally convinced him to tone it down a little.
This is definitely not a film to take children to but no matter how difficult it is to watch this is a film that you will be thinking about long after you leave the theatre. It has not been announced yet but Yeon Samg-ho is already at work on his new feature film which I am told will be even more hard hitting that his previous two films.
Truth Has Fallen is an excellent example of the power of animated documentaries. Shelia Sofian’s 60 minute live action/animated doc follows the work of James McCloskey, who works to free prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted by the United States justice system. In 1983 McCloskey founded Centurion Ministries which has freed more than 25 people proven to be wrongly accused of murder. The cases of 3 incarcerated people convicted of murder that were proven innocent and subsequently freed through the work of McCloskey and Centurion Ministries is told with live action footage shot in a surrealistic manner and juxtaposed against expressionistic animation to illustrate the testimony of the 3 innocent victums. Gripping images of actors in a black void, hands on prison cell bars, and a row of manacled ankles in prison dress accompany the expert’s commentary. Painted animation illustrates the prisoner’s stories. The different artistic styles are woven together throughout the film while images of prison, courtroom, and police interrogations are interfaced together throughout the film.
Given that the United States contains only 5% of the world’s population but has 25% of the world’s prison population, the United States has the world’s highest prison population according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Sofian, an associate professor of animation at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has made a film that asks how innocent people could be convicted of murder in such vast numbers, what can be done to prevent such injustices in the future, and what happens to these innocent people when they are released from prison after years of incarceration? I’m not sure if Truth Has Fallen has been shown widely in the United States where it needs to be screened, but it has been at such important European festivals as Annecy, DOK Leipzig and of course ANIMA Brussels.
Signe Baumane charmed the audience with her humor and candor when she introduced her award winning feature film Rocks In My Pockets. Signe lays her soul bare in her film which tells her very personal story of her life and speculates on the madness that has run through the history of the women in her family. She ponders on her share of their DNA and wonders if she can escape the family destiny. With equal parts humor and irony she has turned what could have been a very tedious, dark film into a delightfully entertaining trip through her mind. What makes the film an even more amazing success story is that in this day and age of slick, big budget studio animated features Signe managed to finance the film on her own with a successful crowd funding campaign and money from working on other commercial projects while creating a feature film almost singlehanded.
She is a brilliant story teller and animator so it is good to see that she is finally getting the recognition she deserves. If you have not had a chance to see Rocks In My Pockets you can choose from three ways to watch it at:
http://www.rocksinmypocketsmovie.com/
where you can purchase the DVD, rent a stream, or buy a download. You can also become an affiliate and share in the profits for every copy that is sold to someone you recommend the film to. It is a film that you can enjoy over and over again.
Prior to making Rocks In My Pockets Signe drew short animated films. Her series on sex from a women’s point of view, Teat Bet of Sex, made for Italian television, are short vignets that range from being swept off your feet by the wrong Prince to “does the size of a man’s penis matter?”, topics every woman can relate to. The 2001 film Natasha, about a frustrated housewife who has a love affair with her vacuum cleaner, makes me laugh every time I watch it. A collection of her shorts were also screened at the festival.
Signe is an old, dear friend who I have not had a chance to see much of during the past few years because she lives in New York City. It was a special pleasure for us to get to spend a lot of time together. It was a laugh filled few days for sure.
Several feature films were also screened that have received rave reviews such as Tomm Moore’s beautiful Song of the Sea (Ireland) and Ale Abreu’s O Menio E O Mundo (The Boy and the World) from Brazil which won the feature crystal at Annecy last year. The charming, poetic Brazilian adventure about a young boy that goes in search of his father who has left his village to seek work was also selected as the best feature film by the ANIMA jury.
The date of ANIMA Brussels changes every year because it is always scheduled to coincide with the Belgian Carnival Week school holidays. Afternoons are always devoted to screenings for youngsters from 3 to 8 years old. I talked to two parents who had brought their 3 year olds to see The New Adventures of Spot and Splodge for their first cinema experience. They both told me that they remember their parents bringing them to the festival for their first movie when they were very small and they are carrying on the tradition. The only sound in the theatre was laughter as the little children watched the 6 short episodes of the adventures of the 2 inventive and curious rabbits that can turn anything from doing laundry to baking cookies into a great adventure.
For older children there were big name hit features such as Big Hero 6 and The Boxtrolls along with independent features from around the world. I watched Yellowbird with an audience of 5 and 6 year olds and their parents. They clearly enjoyed it. The film is the first feature from the French independent studio TeamTO.
The story is about a very unlikely hero. A little orphaned yellowbird who desperately wants a family accidently becomes intrusted with the responsibility of leading a flock of colourful blue birds on their migration to Africa by the dying elder of the flock. Yellowbrid has to summon up all of his courage to undertake the task, admit his ignorance when he leads the flock the wrong way across Paris and the Netherlands before they end up in Iceland, and then finally find a solution to get his freezing charges to Africa which, of course, he finally does. Once they get to Africa he is accepted into the flock finding the family he so desperately wanted. This is not a complicated story.
What makes this computer animated film stand out above so many others is that it looks beautiful. The attention to detail on the bird’s feathers and especially the leaves on the trees are very impressive. The English language version of the film features the voices of Danny Glover, Elliot Gould, Dakota Fanning, and Seth Green who all do a first rate job.
I spent a lovely evening with the film’s Italian director Christian de Vita who told me that Yellowbird was designed by the very talented Benjamin Renner, known for his work on the charming Ernest and Celestine. When I learned that I understood why the film is so visually pleasing.
The film premiered at the London International Film Festival. Even though it only opened in the United States on 5 screens in Detroit (What was the US distributor thinking?) it is fairing very well in Europe. It opened on 900 screens in Russia, as well as a good number in France. It will hit the screens in the rest of Europe in the next month or two as well as screening at the Trick Film Festival in Stuttgart in May. If you have a young child in your life I recommend taking them to see Yellowbird. The DVD will also debut on 7 April in the United States.
2014 produced a large number of excellent short films. The films that impressed me most in the Short Film Competition programs such as The Bigger Picture, The Dam Keeper, and Brutus have already been seen and won multiple awards at earlier festivals. The year is still young though so hopefully the best is yet to come.
One pleasant new surprise was Simhall (Bathhouse) by Swedish director Niki Lindroth van Bahr. The story takes place in a Swedish bathhouse managed by a horse who is a stickler for rules and order. A male wolf tries to persuade his reluctant female companion to get into the pool even though she is plainly terrified and then 3 mice show up who are obviously up to no good. The animal puppets which are all extinct species are beautifully crafted and the script well written. Simhall mirrors modern society far too closely to call it pure entertainment, but it is an excellent film.
Belgian animator Sacha Feiner is definitely a rising star in the horror animation genre. His film Last Door South is eerie, creepy, and delightfully entertaining. The story is about a young boy and his Siamese twin Toto whose head never grew to normal size. In fact Toto reminded me of the alien in the sci-fi horror film Alien. Their mother locked them away in the huge family mansion, safe from prying eyes. Between exploring endless corridors, being tutored by their mother, and visits to their father’s mausoleum, the brothers have never question the limits of their world. Until one day when . . . but I don’t want to spoil the ending.
The beautifully crafted puppets and sets are lit perfectly and add to the rich, textured look of the black and white film. The National Competition Jury awarded Sacha the Grand Prix for Best Short made in the Federation Wallonie-Brussels (the French speaking region of Belgium). I am sure that we will see much more work from this talented young man. I for one am very curious to see what he comes up with next.
Everyone wants to think about the artistic side of animation but the business side is just as important. The three days of The Business of Animation seminars were aimed at Belgian professionals and students to explore facets of the business in this country. Getting Your Animated Film Out There – The Do’s and Don’ts covered the ends and outs of making a film and getting it out to the international market. Eric Groossens co-founder of the highly successful Walking the Dog Studio was joined by Emma De Swaef and James Marc Roels whose short film Oh Willy won numerous awards at festival worldwide. They discussed the topic and answered questions from the audience. Oh Willy brought Emma and Marc countless commercial jobs. At one point Willy appeared on posters all over Gent to advertise the bus and tram company. The pair shared their firsthand knowledge of the pleasures and pitfalls of creating an extremely successful film and the problems of dealing with commercial jobs and people who want you to create the same style over and over.
The session with web creators brought together professionals working in new forms of writing. It was devoted to the connections between web creation, animation, and comic books. The group exchanged ideas on work collaboration and getting your work out to the right people.
In the video games presentation 3 employees from Gent based Larian Studio discussed the characteristics of game design and the nature of their work to a packed audience of young would be game designers. Larian Studio’s Divinity: Original Sin was recently named Best Game of 2014 by the Gamespot website. This is just one in a long list of successes that the studio has racked up so they had a lot of information and tips to give to their audience.
Two programs spotlighted Dutch animation. Studying Animation In The Netherlands introduced films made at universities and academies by the talented new crop of young Dutch animators. The films were selected in co-operation with Gerben Schermer, director of the Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht.
The Dutch Delights screening was a selection of the cream of the crop by professional Dutch animators selected by the KLIK Animation Festival in Amsterdam. KLIK not only hosts an annual animation festival at the beautiful EYE Dutch Film Institute but also takes Dutch animation touring to such far flung places as Saint Petersburg, Russia and the West Coast of the United States. The screening began with the short KLIK on tour promo film followed by this year’s festival trailer created by the talent studio Job, Joris, and Marieke. The remainder of the diverse program was created by such established Dutch animators as Rosto, Joost Loeuima and Jon, Joris, and Marieke whose A Single Life was nominated for an Oscar this year. The two screening were followed by the Dutch Walking Dinner. The walking was actually done by the waiters who brought course after course of delicious Dutch food and drink specialties around the room as we stood at cocktail tables.
At the party I had the opportunity to spend time with my old friend Sam, the master of Spanish puppet animation and his wife Flora Cuevas. His new feature film Pos Eso premired at ANIMA Brussels. Director/screen writer Sam described the film to me as an animated horror /comedy/ slasher film made out of plasticine. He is a true master with the material, having honed his craft at Aardman Studio working on Creature Comforts. Sam told me that he loves horror films and thinks of Pos Eso as a comic cross between The Exhorcist, Hell Raiser, and The 5th Element. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the film but I know that it will be at many festivals in the coming year so I will have ample opportunities to see it.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day the festival put together a program titled This Thing Called Love. The adult look at love as seen through the eyes of Bill Plympton, Signe Baumane, Michaela Pavlatova, and of course that romantic film of passion on the roof Roof Sex by Pez definitely had something to put everyone in the mood after that romantic Valantine’s Day dinner.
Animated Night is a yearly tradition featuring 3 late night programs selected from films submitted to the festival. The first group of films begin a 21h30 (9:30 PM) and the screening goes until the wee hours of the morning. This is a distant relative of KLIK’s Midnight Madness so even though there is no audience participation beyond the groans, there are some really bazaar films. There are intermissions so the audience could go to the bar and after some of the films a beer is really needed. Live music for dancing during the breaks got you limbered up and ready to go back into the theatre for another round. Not all of the films are bad, but as the night wears on the bad ones are the ones that seem to stick in my mind.
The daily Meet the Talent sessions were a welcome new feature this year. The opportunity to hear directors from films shown the previous day talk about their films gives the audience an opportunity to understand more about the director’s motivation in making the film and ask questions. I always learn a lot at these chats and try never to miss them at a festival. Unfortunately the sessions were scheduled at the same time as the competition programs. When ANIMA figures out the right time to hold the chats I am sure they will become popular. At the early evening talks complementary drinks were provided which was a nice touch. When Korean producer Cho Young Kag finished discussing The Fake he treated the audience to delicious Korean sushi and sweets.
Such festival traditions as the Open Screening and Pecha Kucha are big crowd pleasers. The free open screening sessions allows any animator to bring his film which is screened on a first come first served basis. The audience has the opportunity to discover an unknown gem or see early work by the next up and coming young animator. You also get to see some really bad films which can be fun too. The film makers also get their 60 seconds of fame when they are introduced to the audience.
Pecha Kucha 20 x 20 originated in Tokyo in 2003. It has spread to over 800 cities around the world. It was conceived as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. The concept is simple. Participants show 20 images for 20 seconds each from their work in progress. As the images progress the creators talk about their work and the images on the screen.
The festival fills all three floors of the Flagey. In between trips to the three screening rooms there is a lot to discover. Daily workshops for children were organized by William Henne of the Zorobabel Collective in conjunction with Kids Cam. The 75 minute sessions were open to all children between 5 and 12 years old. At each session the young people could work in one of the 4 or 5 groups using sand, colored Plexiglass, wooden blocks and anything else that they could imagine such as pasta and rice. Each group had an adult who assisted them but the children conceived the story and did the work themselves. They also created the sound tracks for their films. Members of Kids Cam videoed the films which the workshops created and you can see then at: www.zorobabel.be
On the main floor faces could be turned into butterflies, Draculas or any childhood fantasy by two very talented and patient young ladies.
An entire room was given over to the Behind the Scenes of Stop Motion exhibition. Bastien Dubois and Julie Nobelen chose 25 film makers to be part of the exhibit. They ranged from international studios to independent animators working with every material imaginable to be part of the exhibition. It was originally assembled by the pair for Annecy 2014 where it was located throughout the main walkway of a shopping center. At Annecy it was a larger exhibition with additional puppets and monitors showing film clips, but most people were too busy shopping to pay much attention and some even used the couches in front of the monitors to park bored husbands or children while they shipped. Even though the Brussels version was smaller it was much nicer to present the amazing creations in a gallery setting. Visitors got to take their time enjoying such wonderful creations as Adam Eliot’s Max from Mary & Max who came all the way from Australia to be part of the exhibit, and Spela Cadez’s “hero” from her latest film Boles. The display cases were perfectly arranged to make all sides of the puppets visible and the lighting was excellent.
In another small room furnished with hassocks and pillows I was totally fascinated by 2 video installations created by Maarten Isaak de Heer. The 2D animations gave the illusion of a moving still life. A Flood Story is an animated cityscape where Western European animals live in an Eco-social housing estate. The river tide rises daily flooding the animal’s homes but they aren’t suprized or scared. They just go with the flow because it is an endlessly repeating story.
The other film on the loop was Handelonger (The Book of Acts). It looked like a drawing filled with small occurrences happening in different areas on the screen. As I watched the high resolution video installation of a typical Dutch suburb, daily city life is slowly revealed to give us a bird’s eye view of streets and buildings. The bridge across the canal is slowly raised to allow a boat to pass while traffic piles up to wait for the bridge to be lowered. Buses come and go as ant sized people go about their business and emergencies such as a car accident slowly reveal themselves. I’m not sure if I ever saw either piece entirely but it doesn’t really matter because part of the enjoyment is to look at them as you would a painting hanging on the wall. Whenever I was passing the room where the projection was I stopped to take a look at what was going on in the picture and I always noticed something new.
Maarten’s work was exhibited in the Dutch Pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai and at the Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht as well as in several museums. He is currently at work on a 360 degree visual instillation that will be projected onto a dome.
At the opening night gala Festival founder and long-time co-coordinator Philippe Moins was brought to the stage by Doris Cleven, fellow festival coordinator. It was announced that Philippe has stepped down as head of the festival to pursue his writing and other projects that have been put on hold while the festival took center stage in his life. It is Philippe’s artistic vision that has framed the character of ANIMA Brussels. The over 30 years of knowledge and hard work that he has contributed to ANIMA Brussels will not be lost because I am happy to say that he will remain as a consultant.
A big job well done goes to festival director Doris Cleven and her very hard working staff. I own a personal debt of gratitude to Francoise Cathala, Karin Vandenrydt, and Noemie Meert who, besides being festival programmers, are responsible to make sure that guests are well taken care of. The numerous personal kindnesses that they went out of their way to show me are greatly appreciated and helped to make my job much easier.
Once again this year Stephanie Coerten was an energetic and enthusiastic hostess on stage. In between running from theatre to theatre to introduce and interview film makers on stage she always took time to do her homework so that she had intelligent comments to make and interesting questions to ask the animators. On top of all this Stephanie always looks sensational, wearing fantastic outfits and wonderful jewellery. She even sported a vintage Shaun the Sheep purse on opening night.
Unfortunately I missed closing night because I flew out that Saturday to Sofia, Bulgaria where I was invited to sit on the selection committee for the GOLDEN KUKER Animation Festival, but that is another story. A complete list of all of the winning films follows. You can see more pictures and learn more about ANIMA Brussels at www.animafestival.be. The 2016 edition of ANIMA Brussels will take place between 5 through 14 February and I am already looking forward to it.
2015 Awards
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Jury Awards:
Grand Prix Anima 2015 provided by the Brussels-Capital Region (€2.500)
Simhall - Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Sweden
Special mention: Tempête sur anorak, Paul Cabon, France
Anima 2015 Award for Best Student Short Film provided by TVPaint (TVPaint Animation 11 Standard Edition software license, worth €500)
Loop Ring Chop Drink - Nicolas Ménard, United Kingdom
Special mention: Small People with Hats, Sarina Nihei, United Kingdom
Radio Bobo-jury:
Anima 2015 Award for Best Children’s Short Film
Le Vélo de l’éléphant - Olesya Shchukina, Belgium, France
Special mention, Dimitri à Ubuyu, Agnès Lecreux & Fabien Drouet, France, Belgium, Zwitserland
Audience Awards:
Audience Award for Best Short Film, provided by Fluxys (€2.500)
Mythopolis - Alexandra Hetmerová, Czech Republic
Audience Award for Best Children’s Short Film
Dimitri à Ubuyu - Agnès Lecreux & Fabien Drouet, France, Belgium, Switzerland
Audience Award for Best Animated Feature, provided by FedEx (voucher worth €2.500)
Extraordinary Tales - Raul Garcia, Luxembourg, Spain, United States, Belgium
Audience Award for Best Children’s Animated Feature
Opération casse-noisette (The Nut Job) - Peter Lepeniotis, United States, Canada, South Korea
Animated Night Audience Award for Best Short Film
Wurst - Carlo Vogele, Luxembourg
Partner Awards:
BeTV Award for Best Animated Feature (€5.000 for acquisition of broadcasting rights)
Giovanni no Shima (Giovanni's Island) - Mizuho Nishikubo, Japan
Press Award for Best Short provided by the magazine Be4MAg (€500)
Through the Hawthorn - Anna Benner, Pia Borg, Gemma Burditt, United Kingdom
NATIONAL COMPETITION
Jury Awards
Anima 2015 Award for Best Belgian Short Film provided by SABAM (€2.500)
Het Paradijs - Laura Vandewynckel
Grand Prix Anima 2015 for Best Short of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, provided by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (€2.500)
Dernière Porte au sud - Sacha Feiner
Anima 2015 Author Award provided by SACD (€2.500)
Deep Space - Bruno Tondeur
Best Belgian Student Short Film Award provided by TVPaint (TVPaint Animation 11 Standard Edition software license, worth €500)
Hondenleven - Pieter Vandenabeele
Partner Awards
BeTV Award (€1.000 for acquisition of broadcasting rights)
Hondenleven - Pieter Vandenabeele
RTBF – La Trois Award (Acquisition of broadcasting rights)
Dernière Porte au sud - Sacha Feiner
Cinergie Award (Electronic Press Kit)
Deep Space - Bruno Tondeur
