THE BEST ANIMATION FESTIVAL THAT I NEVER SAW by Nancy Denney-Phelps
If you remember my article about the Zagreb International Festival of
Animation two years ago you may recall how much I loved the Festival. From
the moment you arrive you feel that you are with family. The Festival's
director Margit Antauer, affectionately known as Buba, does everything to
make you feel welcome and her fabulous staff works overtime to try to tend
to your every need.
This year's event took place June 12-17. As I settled in to watch the
opening awards ceremony and the first competition program, little did I know
that this would be one of my rare spates of carefree animation watching
here, thanks to the ASIFA International board and committee meetings which I
needed to attend. True to past years, the opening competition program was
very strong, ranging from the National Film Board of Canada's Louise by
Anita Lebeau which I wrote about in the Annecy 2005 article, Ivan Maximov's
Wind Along the Coast which we screened at our two farewell performances in
the Bay Area and John Canemakers' Oscar winning film Moon and the Son: An
Imagined Conversation. Following the screening, there was a lovely welcoming
party.
Tuesday morning I was all ready to put in another day of heavy duty film
watching. Zagreb always offers plenty of wonderful opportunities to see
archival films including a Fyodor Khitruk Retrospective. He had been awarded
a lifetime achievement award the night before, presented by Eduard Nazarov.
It was not only for his extraordinary body of work, but also for his many
years of teaching at Soyuzmultfilm Studio. I also got to see Tuesday's
program of Competition Films for Children that featured a wide range of
films including Russia's Pilot Animation Studio's About a Ram and a Goat
(see my Annecy article), Signe Baumane's Dentist (Signe says children love
Dentist) and director Roger Allan's The Little Match Girl from Disney (our
sugar rush for the day).
I was also looking forward to seeing all of the Student Film Competitions,
since I had missed most of them at Annecy due to scheduling conflicts.
Alas, this was not to be. Tuesday afternoon was the General Assembly
meeting and I had Karl's proxy for ASIFA San Francisco. Of course, after all
of the reports were read, there was no time to bring anything else up so I
mentioned what topic I wanted to talk about and that I would bring it up at
the ASIFA Board Meeting the next day. Karl and I had decided that the ASIFA
website was an issue that we were very concerned about. It had become a
disaster area through no fault of the two people who have been keeping it
up. It is just too much work for them as they are already over loaded with
other responsibilities.
I did get to Tuesday nights competition program, which had several worthy
films by young film makers mixed with works like The Old Crocodile by Koji
Yamamura, who was the Honorary President of the Zagreb Festival this year,
having won the Grand prix two years ago. Tuesday night ended at the
nightclub in the Hotel Dubrovnik, where Nik and Rolf Bachler played music
while the crowd socialized. Rolf is our Swiss animator friend whom many of
you met when he performed with Nik and The Sprockets in San Francisco.
Wednesday started calmly enough giving no clue as to what was about to
occur. I saw the children's program that included Charlie Canfield's Hide
and Seek. The film was very well received. Being so tall, Charlie was very
visible throughout the festival and whenever I saw him he always looked like
he was having a very great time.
At 2 O'clock I presented myself at the ASIFA International Board meeting for
what was the beginning of three very heated sessions on three successive
days. I don't want to go into details here, but a very important and
complicated issue was the decision to create a new position of Executive
Director. The exact duties of this person are still under discussion, but
this paid position will hopefully generate new revenue from grants and raise
the visibility of ASIFA worldwide. (I was shocked when the treasurer
e-mailed me that there are only 2,680 members worldwide and that the
majority of these come from ASIFA Hollywood, about 1,800 in 2005.) I was
appointed to the task force to determine a list of proposed duties for the
Executive Director and which my fellow board members are now reviewing and
ranking in order of importance to them.
Much time was spent on discussions of CARTOON Magazine, the publication that
all ASIFA International members receive, and I also brought up the Web site
issue. The upshot of this is that I was made chairman of the web design
committee with three very competent and knowledgeable fellow board members.
We even had a Saturday committee meeting!!! By the time you read this Karl
will have received a call from our committee to ask the San Francisco
membership what is important to them in the ASIFA web site.
Last, but not least, there was the great debate over the election of a
President. Much to my surprise the representative from Austria nominated me
for the Office of President of ASIFA International. I was very honored and
I take this nomination quite seriously. I believe that I could do a very
good job. The election will be sometime in mid to late September and you
will hear more from me about this by e-mail. At present the only other
candidate is Nelson Shin, the talented and highly respected Korean animator
whose company animates The Simpsons.
The board worked very hard and a great deal was accomplished so I do not
fully regret not seeing a lot of animation. That includes a celebration of
50 years of Croatian animation. For many years it was next to impossible for
us in the States to view this work. We did break our meeting in time to
attend the special luncheon that the Festival had arranged to celebrate the
50th anniversary, but then it was off to my committee meeting.
One welcomed break from the meetings was the party put on by
the newly born Platform International Animation Festival. Held at the
Sheraton Hotel there was an abundance of food and wine and a chance to visit
with old friends. I was so happy to share a drink with Jimmy Morikami who is
an old KROK friend and always such a delight to laugh with, and to hang out
with Hungary's Suzanna Szabo and Russia's Ivan Maximov. Once again our two
man band, Nik and Rolf provided music for the event. I am very impressed
with the Platform staff and believe that they will put on a class act
festival in Portland in 2007. It is long overdo that America has an
animation festival that is truly world class. Animators looking for
festivals to enter should give Platform a chance.
On Thursday after more meetings I saw the 4th Grand
Competition program which included such tidbits as RABBIT and Paul Bush's
WHILE DARWIN SLEEPS. After the screening we gathered again at the Hotel
Dubrovnik where Nik and Rolf were joined by ASIFA East Board Member Ray
Kosarin on piano. It looks like we could have an ASIFA board band, perhaps
the secret weapon to fill the ASIFA coffers someday.
In years past the Zagreb picnic has been a time for everyone to gather
together and have an afternoon of fun. This year the festival grew too large
for us to all be put on a bus and taken out of town. My Norwegian pal Gunnar
Strom and I saw a void and decided to fill it. We hosted a party/picnic at
the "Bar Behind the Wall," which is the workers' bar at the backstage of the
theatre. It was a place where everyone could get together and relax. With
the gracious help of Buba and with monetary contributions from Soyako
Kinoshita (Director of the Hiroshima Animation Festival and acting President
of ASIFA International until the elections are completed), David Ehrlich,
and Gunnar; amazing French cheese from Nicole Solomon, and other food
contributions from Buba and myself, we had a lovely gathering.
By Friday night's competition screening I was totally exhausted and slept
through most of the films. At midnight we all walked over to the beautiful
Pavillion Gallery of Arts for the formal Festival Good Bye Party. Once
again there was a lavish spread of food and drink in a classic, elegant
setting complete with lovely salon piano music provided by a Zagreb pianist,
and a chance to just talk and relax.
Zagreb is a fascinating city and two years ago I took time to wander around
charming streets and markets. This year I hadn't seen anything in the city
except screening rooms, meeting rooms and parties. Saturday morning Rolf and
I took off for a delightful amble about the city ending up in the lovely
market. Unfortunately duty called and we had to go back for a meeting of the
website redesign committee.
Saturday evening was the awards ceremony followed by a reception for ASIFA
International members and their guests in the ASIFA International Board
Room. Vesna Dovnikovic, the invaluable Secretary General of the ASIFA
International Board, hosted the event. Even though Vesna had a lot more work
heaped on her with the unexpected extra board sessions, she was all smiles
and a very gracious hostess. She presided over a lovely event. It was
wonderful to see veteran British animator Bob Godfrey, who was everywhere at
the festival with his very proud grandson, talking to old friends and young
animators alike and laughing his wonderful laugh.
The final dinner was at the rustic little restaurant behind the festival
building (where you could always find groups of animators eating and
drinking). It was a large gathering with tables pushed together into two
long rows. Joanna Quinn and her family were there proudly displaying her
brand new Grand Prize award, as well as Bob Godfrey, Jimmy Murakani and Phil
Mulloy, just to name a few of the illustrious artists present.
For late night music and conversation, we retired to the Hotel Dubrivak
where Nik and Rolf were joined by Serbian animator Rastko Ciric who plays a
very mean piano. They played Beatles and Beatles-like music as Rastko
recreates John Lennon in the performance art piece The Rubber Soul Project.
It is documented in a hilariously entertaining film of the same name. Some
very good music was heard that night.
There was a wedding party in progress in a nearby alcove. They liked the
music so much that they sent wine over to the band and later invited
everyone to join them for food, drink and dancing to mp3's. I can only
imagine what they will think in years to come when they look at wedding
party pictures full of crazy animators that they had never seen before
dancing with their guests.
Sunday morning Rolf, Nik our two dogs Molly, Kirby and I on were on the road
to the beautiful Croatian coast with a brief stop at the Zagreb flea market
on the way out of town. (By now there was so much dog hair in the car that
we all felt like part of a pack.) It was so nice to know that we would not
have to go to another meeting that Rolf and I just kept laughing insanely at
anything and everything. Nik once again proved what a patient person he is!
The scenic coast proved to be just what we all (dogs included) needed, walks
along the coast listening to the waves, swimming in an ocean that was the
perfect temperature, sitting and watching the hermit crabs move with the
tides and dinners overlooking the water to a backdrop of magnificent
sunsets. All too soon we were on our way to drop Rolf off in Zurich and to
head home to Gent. It was a wonderful two months on the road, but now it was
time to settle down to work in our new home. On 5 August I leave for my
annual pilgrimage to KROK.
