VES is pleased to announce that it is now accepting submissions for its annual Student Award, exclusively sponsored by Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in entertainment software.

I’ve known Gary Schwartz since, well, since he was a much younger zany filmmaker and animation teacher. In the Webster’s Dictionary, under the word “energy,” there is a picture of Gary with his infectious grin, a camera and a tripod. This year at the Ottawa Animation Festival, as he does every year, Gary made an extremely cool stop motion short – in one day! Fa Fha Pha Ottawa!, inspired by the Ottawa festival award designed by sculptor Tick Tock Tom, is his best yet!

Since 2005 YouTube has given us a prime venue for quick and dirty moving images. And now the powers that be in the ART world are going to use that forum to judge us filmmakers!

The Seventh Tehran International Animation Festival will be held from 6th to 10th March 2011 by the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults.

Aims and Objectives of the Festival

Providing an opportunity for artists to exchange ideas through gathering purposeful presentation of the animation works.

Discovering potentials and encouraging young animators to innovate and create.

Developing abilities through new techniques and perspectives.

The festival is categorized in four sections: Competition, non competitive category, Special Screening and Panorama.

A Short History of Tehran International Animation Festival

Despite the four decades of animation production in Iran and the three-decade experience of KANOON (Institute for the intellectual Development of children & Young Adults) in Producing animations, screening the animated films in the country was limited to lateral sections of Iranian film festivals (along documentaries and fiction films) until the last year of twentieth century. This was while in spite of the disregard and neglecting, brilliant animations were produced, most of which could have gain diverse success in international fields.

The opening of the first Tehran International Animation Festival in February of 2000 was an end to this neglecting and a starting point for a new period in screening of national & foreign animations in Iran.

From the 896 works received by the bureau of the festival, 488 works were selected among which there were works of artists from 33 countries around the world. Two years later, in the beginning of the third millennium, Iranian animation was no more desperate and isolated. Although the festival was arranged for the professionals of the field, it was welcomed by a huge audience and the animations of 36 countries attended the third edition of festival, showed an improved in quality.

 

The Los Angeles Animation Festival, which is unspooling Friday December 3 through Tuesday December 7 at Cinefamily's Silent Movie Theatre at 611 N. Fairfax in Los Angeles, continues to book great events.

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) are looking for proposals from Canadian Aboriginal artists for audacious, innovative and socially relevant digital media works.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have issued an apology to the unapproved lifting of dialogue from a CollegeHumor short, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) comes to an end with a highly anticipated closing ceremonies which were held this evening at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. OIAF organizers announced the 2010 winners of the official competition during the ceremonies.

Whatever you call it, abstract/experimental ruled the day in Competition 5. Here are some highlights.

I have no comment on Competition 3 and only a couple films stood out for me in Competition 4.

There were some tough films in this competition. Three stood out for me.

The highlight of my second day in Ottawa was finding a working ATM. But the “treat” of the day was sitting in on an intimate discussion with former Oscar-winning Pixar and current Laika writer/director Jan Pinkava. Friendly, engaging, entertaining and brilliant – utterly charming. Made me feel like audience extra at a taping of “Regis and Kelly.” And it’s really, really cold here.

Every year I think Chris Robinson can't take it any higher. But every year he ramps it up a notch. This guy is the master of the post-modern introduction. You had to be there to feel the bizarre energy, to share in the intense, quizzical, weird couple of moments. Then we were back to reality.

DreamWorks Animation is in talks with Rodrigo Blaas to adapt his animated short ALMA in a feature, reports Heat Vision.

Framestore has helped take PHILIPS' award-grabbing campaign, Parallel Lines, into a whole new dimension with its sixth incarnation, The Foundling.

The 6th Athens ANIMFEST 2011 includes competition sections for Shorts, Student Films and Commissioned films. 

Retrospectives, tributes, master classes, speeches, exhibitions and installations are also included.
 

Is it just me, or do Canadians like to congregate and talk hockey while blocking the entrance to every elevator, hallway, doorway and turnstile in the vicinity? It seemed every single path I took yesterday was impeded by some throng completely oblivious to those trying to navigate past them. Oh, plus I saw some good films!

So here I am in Ottawa, and the film I submitted this year to the festival was rejected. Not only this year but none of my films have made competition here. Not only that, but I'm blogging on the festival and my blogs are really positive. So I'm thinking, maybe I should put in some heavy doses of criticism so the folks at the OIAF won't think I'm kissing their royal Canadian asses. But I don't care if they think that. Let them. I'll blog what I want.

With so many fantastic events overlapping with one another, the Ottawa International Animation Festival really suffers from "too much schedule."