eigoMANGA is producing The Anime Pavilion at the Fourth Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration, moving back to Japantown this year.

The Anime Pavilion celebrates the otaku (anime fan) culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anime fans all over the Bay Area are invited to a day-long celebration with a beautiful back drop, two stages of entertainment, easy MUNI access, and plenty of parking -- attendance is expected to top 100,000 for our fourth year

The Fourth Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration will be held on Saturday, May 17, 2008, in celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The event is 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Post Street between Laguna and Webster.

Visit www.eigomanga.com/ahsc/ to learn more about The Anime Pavilion and visit www.asianfairsf.com/ to learn more about the Fourth Annual Asian Heritage Street Fair.

The International Festival of Animated Films AniFest has announced the format for the competition of the festival's 7th edition, which will be held May 7-13, 2008 in Trebon, Southern Bohemia. Those who participated in the festival in recent years will notice some minor changes in both the structure and the names of the competition categories. Also new to the festival is a non-competition presentation of Czech, Slovak and Austrian films with active participation by the authors. This will take place under the title "CAS Presentation" as part of ProfiForum. AniFest, the only competition festival in the Czech Republic dedicated exclusively to animated film, has become synonymous with a nearly week-long animation marathon that presents the best of Czech and international animation. At this year's festival, you will be able to see both hot new films and some unique archival animation. Aside from the films, the professional audience and the professional public will surely be interested in the content of the festival's ProfiForum program. This year's edition brings with it a new feature that will become an annual tradition, the "CAS Presentation" -- a comprehensive presentation of Czech, Slovak and Austrian animated production from the past two years. All writers, producers and distributors of animated film are cordially invited to participate. Both the presentation and the subsequent discussion will be moderated by professionals from the ranks of prominent film theorists and filmmakers, and participation in the program is not subject to selection by any committee. Other programs within ProfiForum that are currently under preparation include: AniDesign (an educational program focusing on computer animation, connected with workshops, presentations and seminars); Meeting the Visegrad Countries (screenings and workshops by young writers from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic); Produced by... (a presentation by prominent animation studios and an opportunity to meet their writers and see their works); and an international competition of flipbooks created by children (a flipbook is a series of cartoons drawn in a notebook, which, as you flip through the pages, appears to move). More information is available at www.anifest.cz.

The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film is one of the largest festivals for animated film in the world. It addresses both an interested audience and industry professionals, and offers an overview of the latest trends in animated film -- from short films to feature films and animated series for TV. Be it puppet or Flash animation, the five competitions all focus on the artistically challenging genre of animated film. For more information, visit www.itfs.de/.

The world's only exhibition that brings together experts from both the fine art establishment and the interactive entertainment industry to explore the art of the video game, Into the Pixel is now accepting submissions for the 2008 collection at www.IntoThePixel.com. Now in its fifth year, Into the Pixel is the one annual opportunity for published video and computer game artists to be recognized by renowned fine art experts, the art-loving public and by their peers in the video game industry. Artists must submit their work by May 21, 2008, for consideration by the ITP jury. Each year Into the Pixel convenes a jury of world-renowned museum curators, gallerists, educators, artists and interactive entertainment art veterans to review the art submitted by video game artists from all over the world. Only 16 pieces are ultimately selected by the jury to be printed by a master printer, framed and hung in the ITP gallery, which then travels around the U.S. and abroad. The highly anticipated 2008 art exhibition will be unveiled to the game industry at the E3 Media & Business Summit, July 15-17, and will open to the public at "Entertainment for All Expo" (E for All), October 3-5, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Into the Pixel was created by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) and the Prints and Drawings Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The newly appointed 2008 Into the Pixel Jury: --Louis Marchesano, Curator of Collections, Prints & Drawings, Getty Research Institute --Kevin Salatino, Curator of Prints & Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) --Daniel Dociu, Chief Art Director, NCsoft North America --Richard Duardo, Managing Director and Master Printer, Modern Multiples Fine Art Studio --Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts, and Co-Director, Interactive Media Division/Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab --Lorne Lanning, Co-Founder and President, Oddworld Inhabitants --Glenn Phillips, Consulting Curator, Getty Research Institute --Kiki Wolfkill, Executive Producer, Microsoft Game Studios Submissions must be art from published or soon-to-be-published computer and video games, or art that was used in the creation of the games. Artists may submit up to three original works. Deadline is May 21, 2008 at Midnight (PT). Interested artists should visit www.IntoThePixel.com for more detailed information or to submit artwork.

AniFest 08 is the seventh annual computer animation festival sponsored by the Center for Graphics Research at Western Connecticut State University. The festival includes speakers, workshops, an animation theater, a student computer animation competition, and an art exhibit. Submissions are invited for all aspects of the festival. For more information, visit the festival's website (http://cs.wcsu.edu/cgr/festival08/) or call 203-837-9353.

Reed Exhibitions, the world's largest organizer of business-to-business events, is hosting the 3rd annual New York Comic-Con, a trade as well as consumer event, which will focus on comics and all matters relating to comics and associated fields; including graphic novels, manga, anime, games, film, television, toys, videogames and licensing rights. The event will take place Jacobs Javits Center and will be designed to attract the loyal fan and avid collector, while also providing a business to business environment for comicbook retailers, chain and independent booksellers, mass merchandisers, toy stores, libraries, and rights and licensing professionals. For more information, visit nycomiccon.com.

A special Softimage User Event on Thursday, April 17 from 7-9 p.m. will be at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Softimage 3D Evangelist Mark Schoennagel will be presenting an overview of the key tools in SOFTIMAGE|XSI that will be featured prominently in Gnomon's upcoming XSI For Maya Users class. Come see firsthand how XSI's non-destructive workflow allows artists to make changes and add details to fully rigged and animated characters without tedious hours of rework. You'll also learn about unique XSI technologies like GATOR, which allows you to transfer any surface properties between models, regardless of complexity or topology, and MOTOR, which makes it easy to transfer motion between character rigs and build reusable libraries of animation by importing and retargeting motion capture data. We'll also show you how to use Ultimapper to generate film-quality normal maps in just a few clicks. The presentation will be rounded out with a brief Technology Preview of some exciting developments going on at Softimage. Softimage client Ron Frankel of Proof will talk about his studio uses SOFTIMAGE|XSI for pre-viz and final shots, and why using and learning XSI benefits both students and professionals alike in today's mixed-pipeline environment. There will also be a drawing for prizes, including several copies of SOFTIMAGE|XSI Essentials ($2,995).

The Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee is a juried festival for short films under 30 minutes from across the U.S. and around the world. Its open division has subdivisions of animation, documentary, narrative, experimental and underground. The event includes screenings, seminars, jazz/blues and a BBQ. A new category for this year is work inspired by Jazz. Kansas City has a rich jazz heritage and it has always been a part of our festival. You can add to that heritage by creating and entering work - dramas, comedies, music videos, documentaries or experimental works -- inspired by jazz -- make them cool or hot, improvisational. The best films will be held in the archives of the American Jazz Museum and the Mutual Musicians Foundation in Kansas City.

There are multiple deadlines starting with Oct. 1. The final deadline is Dec. 1, 2005. For forms and guidelines visit its website www.kcjubilee.org or go to www.withoutabox.com.

April 16-19, 2008. The Red Stick International Animation Festival takes place every year in Baton Rouge, along the banks of the Mississippi River in the downtown arts district. Red Stick highlights every form of animation, from scientific visualization to television programming, visual effects to character animation and feature films. Speakers from the world's leading animation and visual effects companies, screenings from the world's most cutting edge artists, and opportunities to mingle and connect with industry professionals are some of the greatest attractions of the Red Stick International Animation Festival. This year Red Stick ads Red Stick Pitch! an opportunity for aspiring television producers to get their ideas in front of a panel of international acquisitions executives. Participants must register by April 4 to be eligible for the Pitch! contest. Go to http://redstickfestival.org/main/menu/pitch for more information. Come down to Red Stick and get discovered- or just come and learn some stuff and have a good time!

Cartoons on the Bay is an international event with awards, workshops, lectures, TV and theatrical previews, and events centering on the ever-changing world of television animation. The Pulcinella Awards Competition is open to all animation for television and the Internet, including pilots of series. The competition is also open to short films. One hundred and 76 programs, from 24 countries, were chosen as the Official Selection of the Festival's 12th edition. The usual predominance of European and American productions is balanced by a stronger and more incisive presence of Asian ones with programs coming from China, Japan and South Korea. Quite overwhelming is this year's presence of Latvia, Malaysia, India, Slovenia and Colombia. Forty works have been nominated for the 2008 Pulcinella Awards, five for each of the eight competing categories. Cartoons on the Bay will be enriched by a special program of events, film previews, press conferences, meetings with authors, directors, producers and Italian and foreign television personalities, as in the tradition of the festival. Classic characters like Winnie the Pooh in the new series MY FRIENDS TIGGER AND POOH (Walt Disney Television Animation), presented in last year's preview, are back in Salerno, while two characters like PAT & STAN (Mac Guff Ligne, Tv-loonland and Tf1), familiar to the TV audience, step in as nominees in the TV Special section along with new characters like the Indian heroin of the pilot episode of the series SALLY BOLLYWOOD (Tele Images Kids and France3), always dealing with a new adventure, and JOHN AND KAREN (Arthur Cox), the polar bear and the penguin of the short that illustrates the difficult sentimental communication between these extremely different animals. Different genres, themes and technologies are represented to illustrate every aspect of animation, from the classic action taking place in a distant and disturbing future of ANATANE AND THE CHILDREN OF OKURA (Les Films De La Perrine, Carrere Group e Tooncan), to the irresistible irony and vintage setting of SQUIRREL BOY (Cartoon Network Studios), the series' second season, and the short SLEEPING BETTY (National Film Board of Canada). Seven competing programs come from Italy, all co-produced by Rai Fiction: EVERYBODY LOVES A MOOSE (Trion Picture and Cosgrove Hall), AMITA OF THE JUNGLE (Lastrego & Testa Multimedia), GLADIATORS (MondoTv), UFFA CHE PAZIENZA (Enanimation Motus Motionworks), STEFI'S WORLD (The Animation Band), A BICICLE TRIP (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia), ACQUA IN BOCCA (Maga Animation Studio). Asian productions are properly represented this year as well, with programs like the Japanese MIYORY IN THE SACRED FOREST (Nippon Animation Co. E Fuji Television Network), a very poetic TV special, HOORAY FOR FIZI (Sui Sui! Fizi Production Committee), a kaleidoscopic pre-school genre, and the Korean WANTED (Electric Circus), a metaphor of a tragic event that hit the country. During the duration of the exhibition all programs will be available to authors, buyers, distributors, multimedia publishers, journalists and to all professionals operating in the field, at the Digital Library. Works completed after the Jan. 1, 2007 and created with any kind of animation technique may participate. The various Pulcinella Awards are presented in seven competing categories, including best series for infants, children, young adults & adults, all audiences, best pilot, best TV movie, best short film, as well as best European program, best program of the year and best character of the year. Entry into the competition is free. For more information, visit www.cartoonsbay.com.