* Tuesday, October 27 - Saturday, October 31. Leipzig, Germany.


The 41st annual Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film will showcase a retrospective of German animation since 1945, as well as 119 animated films in other programs including competition. For information, contact dock-leipzig@t-online.de.

* Wednesday, October 21. Beverly Hills, California, U.S.A.

Paris, France-based Gaumont Multimedia and Hamburg, Germany-based IGEL Media have reached a multi-year, multi-million dollar first-look distribution agreement giving IGEL all television and home video rights on future Gaumont Multimedia animated series for Germany, Scandinavia, Japan and Korea. The deal, sealed at MIPCOM, reflects both companies' need to address the increased competition and decreased number of broadcast slots available in Germany and Asia.

DreamWorks Pictures and PDI's computer animated feature film, "Antz" grossed $11.2 million last weekend, dropping to third place in the box office charts, following its first two weeks in the number one spot. The total cumulative box office gross to date is $51.5 million, and the film is currently running in 2903 theaters nationwide. "Antz" will make its international debut starting in New Zealand and Australia on October 29.

The Sitges Fantasy Film Festival wrapped up on October 16 in Barcelona, Spain. The international jury for the "Anima't" animation festival within a festival was comprised of Jerry Beck (U.S.A.), Mercedes Gaspar (Spain) and Giorgio Valentini (Italy). They selected "Un Jour" by Marie Paccou (France) as Best Film, and gave an Honorable Mention to "Glassy Ocean" by Shigeru Tamura (Japan). In the main festival, Bill Plympton's film, "More Sex & Violence" won the "Best Short Film" award.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (USC) has hired Internet developer MARK PESCE to head up a new department in the School of Cinema-Television devoted to interactive media. Pesce is cited as being the person who developed Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), the programming code that enables real-time interactivity on the web. He is also co-founder, with Jan Mallis, of an Internet content company called blitcom. Pesce designed the certificate program in 3D Arts at San Francisco State University's College of Extended Learning, and has been teaching at the college level since 1995.

On October 13, Columbia TriStar Home Video released "Buster & Chauncey's Silent Night," a direct-to-video animated musical based on the true story of "Silent Night." The 48-minute film was produced by Buzz Potamkin and is Columbia TriStar's first in-house direct-to-video animated feature. Voice talent, directed by Susan Blu, includes the late Phil Hartman, Tom Arnold and Marie Osmond.

Berlin, Germany-based animation studio, Hahn Film is launching production studios in Taiwan and Vietnam. Each studio will employ about 150 people, and will be devoted to digital ink and paint services, initially for Hahn projects, but may branch out to service other studios in the future. The first studio, called Saigon Graphics Enterprises, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is already up and running, working on the production of the animated series "Wild Life," which is being distributed by Hit Entertainment and is pre-sold to the Fox Family Channel (U.S.), the BBC and Nickelodeon (U.K.).

A new three-year agreement between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), representing voice-over performers working in television animation, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing 108 television animation producers, has been approved by the Guild’s National Board of Directors. The deal is a final version of one that was announced in August [AF 8/11/98], when it represented only 60 animation producers, and was still pending approval by SAG member performers.

Ellipsanime, Canal +’s Paris-based studio that produces the animated series, “Corto Maltese,” has hired MARIE-PIERRE MOULINJEUNE as deputy director for international development and co-productions. She will supervise the development and production of animated films and TV series, and report to vice president Robert Réa. Moulinjeune was previously in charge of coordinating animated co-productions for Télé-Images, and prior to that she was head of program acquisitions for France 2.