Last month marked the third edition of the AniMazSpot Festival in Glendale, California.  It’s a small, non-profit boutique festival that celebrates the best animated short films from around the world.

The event, founded and organized by Tee Bosustow, was held over the course of one week.  It featured studio tours to fifteen area animation studios, screenings of nominated films at the Woodbury University Theatre, and an education forum also held at Woodbury. A highlight of the fest was a special screening of 20 restored, classic Mr. Magoo shorts from UPA at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

Surprise, surprise back at 30,000 ft flying from London to Los Angeles after a super quick trip to the UK and Ukraine.  Since my last communication, which was all about the KROK International Animation Festival, I have been back in the US.  A return home after thirteen months on the road.  I left my home in LA in September of 2011 for a two-month road trip.  That trip kept getting extended and extended.  Resulting into the longest period away from the US since I came to America from the United Kingdom after the release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, nearly 25 years ago.

Surprise, surprise - I’m not at 30,000 ft. as I write this latest blog but on a high-speed train, traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg in Russia, as I make my journey back to the U.K. following a wonderful time attending the KROK International Animation Festival.  This unique festival, now in its nineteenth year, is held in alternate years between Ukraine and Russia and what makes it so unique is the location – it’s on a river cruise ship.  This year was the Moscow edition.  

 

I’m sitting in an aircraft 30,000 feet up reflecting on a two-week trip to India, my fourth visit to this amazing country in just the last eighteen months.  The two weeks included being a guest speaker and jury member at a pre-eminent Bollywood film event in Mumbai, FICCI Frames.

 

India - what a country - contrasts rich and poor, high and low tech, diversity at every turn, from the eighteen official national languages (there are another 347 that are also spoken – mindboggling!) to the delicious spicy foods, which are equally diverse across this vast country of over 1.2 billion people in a land mass of 3m sq km, making it one of the most densely populated countries on earth.  All tied together by a common currency - the Rupee (approximately 50 Rupees to US$1).  And they are all crazy about the sport I love to play – cricket!   There are several TV stations that broadcast the sport 24/7.  I love India!