Nancy and Estonian animator Kasper Jancis doing what they do well.

By Nancy Phelps

Each year I look forward to Anima Brussels because it is my first festival of the year and an opportunity to see a large number of new Belgian animated films.  Over the ten days of ANIMA there are also many noted guests and old friends.

Pictured (from left to right): Voice Actor Charles Fleischer and Oscar® winning Director Robert Zemeckis. Image credit: Matt Petit / ©A.M.P.A.S.

By TDK

For those of you who skip to the end of a book, I’ll skip to the question most asked about Who Framed Roger Rabbit  – “what’s happening with the sequel?” Currently there is no sequel in the works. Director Robert Zemeckis acknowledged such on Thursday (April 4^th) at the Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, in Beverly Hills, California on the occasion of a 25^th Anniversary Screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Italy’s largest computer graphics conference is now ready to accept applications for entries in four contests: VIEW AWARD, VIEW SOCIAL CONTEST, VIEW AWARD GAME, and ITALIANMIX.

AniFest, a traditional animated film festival is to enjoy its 12^th year. One of the biggest film events takes place in Teplice from 26^th April to 1^st May 2013. Film lovers will be offered a large selection of the best Czech and foreign film productions. At the end of April, Teplice will for the 12^th time host AniFest, an International Festival of Animated Films. The event not only offers a variety of films, but also includes a competition, which received 1400 entries from almost 70 countries around the world. The best 149 movies have been included in the programme. This year's festival is under new management, since former director Jakub Hora was replaced by Petr Šplíchal, who brings both managerial expertise and a great deal of experience of film production.

20th edition of the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film

February 27, 2013. Two months before FMX opens its doors, Europe's most influential Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia is pleased to announce that two Pixar films are part of the FMX Conference program. Firstly, the Director and Scriptwriter Saschka Unseld presents his latest work, the Pixar animated short The Blue Umbrella, in Stuttgart. Furthermore, newly-awarded Oscar winner Brave has been confirmed for a presentation. In April 2013, the technical focus at FMX includes a series on "Cloud Gaming" and "Cloud Computing" opened by keynote speaker Jon Peddie (JPR). What's more, Austria, Toronto and Turkey count among this year's "Innovative Places." In addition, market leaders such as Adobe and Autodesk invite attendees to take part in exciting Workshops, while the premiere of the "Fast Forward Education" seeks to build bridges between academia and industry.

The inaugural award winners.

By Catherine Morrissey

February 8^th, 2013, marked a turning point in recognizing excellence in the international kids business:  instead of handing out ONE Emmy statue for the best in “Children and Youth” the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences took a dramatic course change, and handed out SIX (6!) of their impressive statues at a dedicated International Emmy Kids Awards event held in New York City at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers.

Maybe a result of the dramatic expansion of kids channels around the world (from 64 channels in 2000 to over 275 channels in 2010), or as a new revenue stream for the Academy (as some muttered quietly under their cynical breaths), whatever the truth is, sometimes it doesn’t really matter why there’s a new awards event.   True, several countries have their equivalents of the International Kids Emmys.  But  others including France have nothing at all.

By Nancy Phelps

Devoted solely to student work, the festival is the brainchild of well known animator, illustrator, and renaissance man Rastko Ćirić in conjunction with Vuk Maksimovic, master wood carver and furniture maker, who is the representative of the Fortress for this project.  It also received support from the Serbian Ministry of Culture.

Animation students in formation in front of giant figure from their new animated feature (photo: Bill Dennis)

By Nancy Phelps

Arriving in Changchun, China for The International Animation, Comics, and Games Forum was a very abrupt switch from my previous weeks in Kosovo and Serbia.   Any thoughts of long, leisurely meals with friends and watching good animation went out of my head when I was handed my schedule.

When I last visited the Jilin Industrial Park 2 years ago it was still under construction.  The multilevel media school was completed but I had no idea that that the final project would be so massive.   On this visit all of the tall building were completed and seemed to be full of activity and the grounds were fully landscaped.

By Ellen Besen

I really thought this next piece was going to be about festival programming but fresh from CTN Expo- which wrapped on Sun Nov 18, I feel compelled to shift focus to a more pressing topic: overall spirit. By this I don’t mean so much the mood of the attendees but more the spirit in which the event was conceived and carried out by the organizers. This last factor has a defining impact on every aspect of the event including the attendees’ mood and programming as well, which is precisely why it is the more pressing issue.

This kind of spirit can be an elusive subject- one that doesn’t really show itself directly.  Instead you kind of have to look at an event sideways, to use your detective skills and also keep in mind what other choices could have been made to suss out the organizers intentions.