Animated Travels: Sundance

Sundance Till We Drop

Posted In | Blog Categories: Sundance | Site Categories: Events, Films, Short Films
Tired Sundancers
Tired Sundancers

If I haven’t been returning calls or emails over the last few days you will soon know why. As the festival is winding down my wife and I are on a mission to pack in as much as we can. I have a short film in the festival this year and feel like we need to give it our all (can always sleep when we get home). It's time to take off the gloves switch off the phones and hit the streets! Here is a rundown of our last gasp trying to soak it all up. If you are in a rush power scroll / skim through this info and use the ratings system to stop as you like.

Sex, Lies, and Inauguration Day

Posted In | Blog Categories: Sundance | Site Categories: Events, Films, Short Films
sex, lies, and videotape director and cast celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark indie feature.
sex, lies, and videotape director and cast celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark indie feature.

I am sitting in the filmmakers lounge at Sundance headquarters watching the historic inauguration of Barack Obama. I am amongst a crowd of filmmakers, and there is a clear sense of hope and relief that this day has arrived. Cheers and boos accompany politicians as they show on TV (take a wild guess who gets the boos). It’s an event that rightfully will overshadow the Sundance film festival but fitting when thinking about the 20th anniversary screening yesterday of sex, lies and videotape, by Steven Soderbergh, as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Sundance.

The Buddha-like Presence of Robert Redford

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Cam gets his chance to meet Sundance Buddha Robert Redford
Cam gets his chance to meet Sundance Buddha Robert Redford

I just got back from the Directors brunch at the Sundance institute approximately one hour out of Park City Utah. I was one of the lucky, being a director/animator for a short in this year's festival called The Real Place, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

This brunch is for many one of the highlights of the festival and though we went last year it was equally exceptional and inspiring. It is a wonderful way to get to know some of the best filmmakers in the world and hear what is on peoples mind.

Labour Pains and the Birth of Mary and Max

Posted In | Blog Categories: Sundance | Site Categories: Events, Films, Stop-Motion
Writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs talk with the press at the Sundance Film Festival.
Writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs talk with the press at the Sundance Film Festival.

The opening night selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Mary and Max is a clayograph (a claymation biography hybrid) feature film from Academy Award winning writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs, featuring the voice talents of Toni Collette, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries and Eric Bana.