NATPE Student Video & Film Production Awards
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
January 15-18, 2006
Deadline: May 1, 2006

The National Association of Television Program Executives’ (NATPE) Educational Foundation is hosting its annual Student Video & Film Production Awards. Winners will be rewarded with cash prizes and complementary registrations for the 2007 NATPE Conference & Exhibition.

iHollywood Forum, Fun Little Movies and NeTV announced the winners of the first MoTV Awards. Comedian Eddie Griffin (DEUCE BIGALOW: EUROPEAN GIGOLO) congratulated the winners in person last night in a gala ceremony at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

VIZ Media Llc., one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive manga and animation licensing and publishing companies, has brought an array of new shows for both U.S. and international broadcasters. VIZS is located at booth 1344 in the Kids Town grouping the anime specialist has sponsored during NATPE at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

For U.S. broadcasters, VIZ is offering MÄR, ZOIDS GENESIS, HIKARU NO GO, THE PRINCE OF TENNIS, FULL MOON, GRANDPA DANGER and CROKET.

For International broadcasters, VIZ is offering:

MTV Networks Latin America announced a slate of new acquisitions from Paramount, Sony Studios, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal, among others, to further bolster its 2006 program schedule as the network prepared for this week’s National Association of Programming Executives Conference, NATPE, in Las Vegas. The new acquisitions span a variety of genres and styles and will air in the region on Nickelodeon, VH1 and LOGO.

Producer and distributor Cinamour Ent. announced at NATPE that it signed fours deals for its martial arts film, FORBIDDEN WARRIOR. Cinamour sold the 90-minute film to Rainbow Media's VOOM HD Channels, Eurocine (Spain and Andorra), Brand View Media (China Home Video) and DAAR Communications (Nigeria). The fantasy-adventure film follows the adventures of a female Asian mythical hero.

Test your skills and challenge your brain with AWN's Animation Trivia Quiz. Check out the latest installment from quizmaster Karl Staven, an accomplished independent animator and head of the Animation Department at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

HOODWINKED, the independent CGI animated feature released in January 2006, opened with better than expected results its first weekend in release. Do you know anything about this film yet? If not, you probably won’t know the answer to most of these questions.

Monster Distributes will be taking its animated preschool series PICME to NATPE for the first time. From Irish-based Jammedia, PICME is an award-winning interactive animation where a child literally stars in his/her own cartoon. Commissioned by RTE, PICME creates an interaction between broadcaster and audience. Great emphasis is put on the stories themselves, so that children who are not in the story also get huge enjoyment out of it.

Hosted by iHollywood Forum, Inc., Fun Little Movies (FLM) and NeTV the winners of the first MoTV Awards will be announced at NATPE Mobile ++ on Jan. 23, 2006, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at 5:30 pm in the Mandalay Bay resort. Film and TV comedy star Eddie Griffin (DEUCE BIGALOW, EUROPEAN GIGOLO) will present the Fun Little Movies Award for Best Comedy.

Filmmakers or animators can still participate by submitting their short films (10 seconds to 10 minutes in length) to www.mobilemediafest.com. There is a $35 entry fee, $25 for students.

Continuing our special event specific Flash Newsletters, we will be publishing special editions for both NATPE and MIP-TV. The NATPE market is fast approaching and our editorial and advertising staff are gearing up for the NATPE-specific Flash Newsletter series. Here are the dates for the publications. Please send your news two week prior to the publication date.

NATPE Flash Newsletters
January 10
January 17

MIP-TV Flash Newsletters
March 14
March 21
March 28

TV distributor Claude S. Hill died March 18 in Kingsport, Tennessee at the age of 71, reports VARIETY. Through ARP Films, he distributed many of the Marvel Comics animated shows, including SPIDERMAN, INCREDIBLE HULK, MIGHTY THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA. In addition, he distributed ROCKET ROBIN HOOD, MAX THE 2000 YEAR OLD MOUSE and STAR BLAZERS.

He was a long time member of the Friar's Club and NATPE.

He is survived by his wife, Janice, a daughter, two grandchildren and one great-grandson and two sisters.