The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announces its 'Call for Entries' for this year's 37th Annual Annie Awards.

The OIAF, which runs from October 14-18, welcomes several animation legends including Pixar’s Ronnie del Carmen (UP), Henry Selick (CORALINE), David Silverman (THE SIMPSONS), along with retrospective screenings of award-winning animators Don Hertzfeldt, Stan VanDerBeek, Suzan Pitt, Jim Blashfield, and Studio Film Bilder.

Ted Thomas discusses the making of his new documentary, Walt & El Grupo, revealing a hidden chapter in the fabled life of Walt Disney.

Now for the first time in the history of animation ADA creates a professional league among animators, similar to those of NFL, NBA, and MLB. ADA divided the planet into four divisions and each division will consist of 30 professional teams. In order to select the best teams there will be held a 16-week Championship starting on October 7. The main prize is $100,000 but every week you will also have a chance to win $10,000. Absolutely anybody who created an animated clip and uploaded it to www.adasport.com can take part in the Championship. Animated clips can be in any animation genre and the duration should be from 15-60 seconds. The animated character in the clip should perform any dance to any kind of music. You will find more information on ADA’s official website: www.adasport.com.

Starting on Sept. 16, the site Flipnote Hatena (http://flipnote.hatena.com/) will feature shorts made by Aardman Animations using Flipnote Studio, the free animation tool available for DSi.

Festival date: 9th – 11th April 2010
Submission deadline: 15th January 2010 (postal stamp)

In order to participate, films must be produced after 1st January 2008 and made by children or youth.

Festival has no entry fee.
Films must be sent in DVD - PAL format.
The number of submitted films is not limited.
Every film has to be on a separate DVD.

Festival has three categories:
a)MINI (children under 10 years)
b)MIDI (children from 11 – 14 years)
c)MAXI (youth from 15 – 18 years )

Festival will prize five awards per category – one first prize and four equal second prizes.

Web-site: http://vanima.hr/vafi/eng/index.html

AWN's Editor in Chief Bill Desowitz walks us through Day 5 of his SIGGRAPH 09 adventure.The key word is 3-D

Press reports have attendance at about 10,000, which is extremely low, of course. But, as I previously noted, it's resulted in a very appropriate quaintness. You can tell that the people who have come here are very passionate.

A look at some of the short films from the Evening Theater’s Festival Chair’s Reel.

A breakdown of the Evening Theater’s Jury Chair’s Reel, which included the following shorts.

Naturally Autodesk had some big announcements, including 2010 versions of Maya, MotionBuilder and Mudbox and along with new suites for digital entertainment creation and new education initiatives.

Day 2 of the animation competition kicked off at 9am with a loud drumbeat and Afro Brazilian performers. The sound drew a large crowd in to watch the performances. The animation teams had worked through the night on their films so the very lively dancers lent some much needed energy to the competitors.

Monday nights' Evening Theater began with the introduction of host Miles Perkins, senior staff at Industrial Light and Magic. He kicked off the award ceremony by paving the way for Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic.

SIGGRAPH's Fjorg! competition, created by Patricia Beckmann as an Iron Animator event challenges the competitors to create a short film (15-45 seconds) from concept to finish in the short time span of thirty-two hours. To make the task more demanding, distractions are scheduled throughout the day to entice them away from the film making process.

If you take the J train over the Williamsburg Bridge, get off at Kosciusko Street and walk a few blocks west, you’ll come to a storefront that looks like it’s home to a going out of business sale. Inside is a bar and club called “Goodbye Blue Monday”: the place is decorated not unlike Pee-wee’s playhouse or the home of some mad collector of antique TV sets, mountains of action figures and bizarro furniture. I’m there because way in the back Tom Stathes is holding his first Cartoon Carnival.

Some final images from the Annecy Festival awards ceremony.

A wonderful surprise waited for me Saturday morning, when I went seeing the boys. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman had been with me through my entire life. I listened to their songs, from Winnie the Pooh and Jungle Book, from Mary Poppins through to Aristocats.

Stop the printing machines! Hold everything! I have seen the film of the festival. Sorry, but I am still under heavy shock and I think my feel-good hormones are still busy on the merry-go-round called my brain. And this happens only, when I see a truly overwhelming film.

Sorry for writing so late. But yesterday evening I suffered from severe animation illness, information overload and heavy small talk. After seeing the commissioned film program filled with commercials and music videos up to the brink – sitting next to an equally tired Ron Diamond – I hardly reached my apartment and went into dreamland seconds later.

Partytime at Annecy! Do you know which party is going on today? Are you invited? How do you sneak into a party? And why should you do that? This was my last step into the secrets of the festival. Annecy has wonderful parties, hidden ones, open ones, and forbidden ones.