In the international box office, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 remained #1 in Australia by holding off newcomer DINOSAUR, while GLADIATOR gained the top spot in its debut in Japan. DreamWorks’ GLADIATOR claimed new territories in Japan, making $982,911 in its Japanese debut. Elsewhere, GLADIATOR remained at the top in Spain, the U.K., Brazil, Italy and Sweden. The Maximus money-maker grossed $1.89 million in Spain, advancing its three-week cume to $10.05 million.

The Castle Museum and the organizers of the Annecy Festival have begun to gather a collection of animation artifacts. The museum is calling for filmmakers to contribute documents, drawings, artwork etc. from their productions to be preserved. The collection has many optical machines and toys from the early days of cinema. The museum started gathering objects of importance in the 1960s and wishes the continued support of filmmakers to protect and honor the rich heritage of the medium.

The Zagreb Animation Festival was held in the Croatian capital on June 21 – 25, 2000 for the fourteenth time. The atmosphere was literally hot; the sun shined more than enough during the whole festival, raising the daily temperatures easily to 35 centigrade (approximately 90+° F). No wonder the daily festival newspaper reported about the festival picnic with the headline "A hell-hot picnic". On the positive side, however, is that an effective air conditioned inside drew a large audience for the films. The four competition-screenings were very popular among the local audience.

Folioscope's catalog, "L'Equipée de Folimage Studio de Films

d'Animation," now includes an English insert for non-French speakers!

The catalog is a companion for the exhibition on Folimage, the

creators of the 1999 Cartoon d'Or winner, "L'Enfant Au Grelot"

(Charlie's Christmas), among other award winning productions. The

Folimage exhibition will be presented at the Annecy Museum, Annecy

France, June 3-October 31, 2000.

The Oscar winner for best short animated film, "The Old Man And The

Sea," has won the coveted grand prize at the International Festival

of Animated Film at Annecy. In a lively ceremony held on Saturday,

June 10, 2000, the awards were handed out by the festival's artistic

director, Serge Bromberg. The short and feature film jury, comprised

of Meral Erez (Turkey), Aida Ndiaye (Senegal), Georges Schwizgebel

(Switzerland), John Lasseter (U.S.A.) and Jimmy T. Murakami

The next Holland Animation Film Festival will take place in Utrecht,

the Netherlands, November 15-19, 2000. Since 1985 this biennial

festival has aimed to be an intermediary between animators and the

business world, in addition to including film screenings,

retrospectives and theater programs. In the competition for applied

animation, films can be entered in the following categories:

publicity and promotional films; music videos; educational and

The deadline for entries at this year's Ottawa 00 International

Animation Festival is July 1, 2000. The festival will accept entries

as late as July 5, 2000. There are three competitions: independent

films, commissioned films and animation for the Internet. Categories

include: films for children, graduate films, independent films under

50 minutes, first professional film, TV series, TV special,

commercials, music videos, educational or industrial, ids, trailers

* Wednesday, July 26 – Sunday, July 30, 2000. Avanca, Portugal.

DreamWorks’ GLADIATOR is still the golden boy in many international box offices. In the most recent reports, the Roman revenge romp finished atop the charts in Brazil with US$1.18 million, Germany with US$1.06 million, Italy with $303,200, Sweden with $336,708 and the U.K. with $926,371. The Russell Crowe-starrer has grossed a total of $4.6 million in Brazil, $14.67 million in Germany, $7.2 million in Italy, $2.78 million in Sweden and $34.36 million in the U.K. Like it did in the U.K., the box office blood bath held off the debut of BATTLEFIELD EARTH.

* Thursday, July 20 – Sunday, July 23, 2000. Dervio, Italy.

Deadline: June 30, 2000