The Portland Indy Animation Festival 2004 is now accepting competitive and non-competitive entries. The Festival celebrates independent animators around the world, the more independent and original, the better. Submissions can include all aspects of animation including 3D, 2D, machinima, stop motion, filmed puppetry (in all its forms), animated trailers for works in progress and interpretations of the art of animation. Format of submissions (which are final) must be provided on one of the following: DVD, SVCD, VCD, VHS (PAL/SECAM/NTSC), miniDV, SWF (Flash) or mpeg2. Entries need to be received by 23rd July 2004. The Festival will take place at several venues 11th - 14th August 2004 in Portland, Oregon, USA. Entries submitted for the competition will be evaluated by judges and the audience. There will be awards handed out to those present on the last day of the festival. Further details and entry forms for the Portland Indy Animation Festival 2004 are available at http://pdxanimation.com (there is no entry fee).

Aniboom (www.aniboom.com), the premier multi-platform animation network that partners with untapped animation talent from around the world to create independent animated content for global distribution, is holding its 2007 Aniboom Awards. Animators can enter work in five categories, with no limit to the number of categories or submissions per entrant. Categories include Funny, Drama, Music Videos, Amateur and Experimental. Each month for four months, one winner from each category will join the finalist pool. From there, a winner will be chosen from each category to compete for the grand prize. Prizes include a $25,000 original series development deal, $3,000 to each category winner, Toonboom Software (valued at $7,000) and exposure to some of the most renowned industry executives. The Aniboom Awards will be judged by entertainment executives and animation industry veterans, including multi-award-winning animator and Oscar nominee Paul Driessen. In 2006, the Annual Aniboom Awards received more than 1,700 entries from more than 70 countries in its inaugural year. Winner Jossie Malis took home $25,000 for his animation BENDITO MACHINE. Malis is working with the Aniboom Creators Studio to develop his original series, which is set to launch in 2008. For more information, visit www.aniboom.com.

backup stands for films and videos reflecting, defining and readjusting the boundaries and prospects of film and its diverse segments by creatively experimenting with different ways of production and expression. That is why backup is looking for film works that refuse to be categorized by genres, topics and other traditional criteria -- experiments in the format of moving picture. A new addition to this year's 11th backup festival is a competition for international debut features. With this award and the systematic development of media partnerships backup wants to promote the potential of young filmmakers and support their talent. As in the past 10 years, backup wants to encourage a discourse about films, formats and festivals reflecting the current developments and wants to find and support artistic works and exceptional approaches to the medium film. Since its 10th anniversary in 2008 the date of the backup_festival has been changed and will now be held from May 21-24, 2009 because the early summer weather in Weimar, Germany offers the possibility of celebrating the festival as a larger and more vibrant open-air event.

2004 Machinima Film Festival Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2004 Time: Festival- 11am - 6pm, Awards - 8pm-9pm Location: The American Museum of the Moving Image, NY The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS), an organization that provides advocacy, education and community building awareness for the entertainment medium known as Machinima: animated film making using real-time 3D virtual environments, announced today a call for entries for the 2004 Machinima Film Festival. Sponsored by NVIDIA, the worldwide leader in visual and media processing technologies, the third-annual festival will be held November 6th 2004, at the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York. The one-day event will include screenings of Machinima films, workshops hosted by Machinima filmmakers, special screenings, talks with award-winning independent filmmakers and seminars about Machinima production techniques. The event will culminate in an awards ceremony where some of the best Machinima filmmakers will be recognized for their creative artistry in this new and powerful entertainment medium that's set to revolutionize the world of animation.

As a featured component of Los Angeles' International AFI Film Festival, AFI DigiFest is presenting two interactive media showcases highlighting the latest innovations in digital media and their real-world applications. Presented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' beautiful Linwood-Dunn Theater, the two days of presentations and seminars will be filled with some pretty dazzling stuff. Here's the program: Day One (November 8): AFI hosts a series of curated presentations that highlight noteworthy digital productions from around the world. Among the presentations, Marshall Herskovitz, creator of THIRTY SOMETHING, MY SO-CALLED LIFE and BLOOD DIAMOND, will preview QUARTERLIFE, a new dramatic broadband series that premieres on MySpace on Nov. 11. Presentations rounding out the day feature the best in new digital thinking from the worlds of film, television, games and mobile. Bobby Beck, CEO/President, Animation Mentor, will be part of a panel titled "The Reinvention of Storytelling through Interactive Media." Day Two (November 9): AFI presents five new prototypes incubated in the AFI Digital Content Lab: an online video platform and citizen journalist toolkit for NOW, PBS' weekly investigative news program; a strategy for retaining viewer interest during ads in a DVR environment for Bravo; a social network tailored for players, a documentary about videogame fans being produced by MTV, EA, and Mekanism; a pilot for an original dramatic machinima series created within a 3D game engine; and, finally, a unique user-generated film contest, Filmocracy, for ITVS. For more information, visit www.afi.com/onscreen/AFIFEST/2007/.

On February 11, 2009 at 7 p.m., the Kinetic Cinema screening at Chez Bushwick will feature a wide-variety of dance and movement animation videos. Curated by Doug Fox, blogger and founder of Great Dance, the program will show how directors, artists, choreographers and dancers have used different animation styles and techniques to capture, illustrate and transform human movement. The program will feature 15 clips from video and film animations, theatrical movie releases, TV commercials, music videos, performances and installations, and student projects. Among the highlighted animation techniques will include hand-drawn 2D animation, 3D animation, live-action and computer graphics, stop-motion, rotoscoping, motion graphics, real-time performance animation, machinima and other animation styles. This program builds on Fox's online guide to "50 Dance and Movement Animations," which he published in January 2009 on GreatDance.com. He has interviewed many of the artists, animators, directors, choreographers and dancers who participated in the production of the videos which will be screened and he will share insights from these conversations during the Q&A section of the program. Date/Time: February 11, 2009 7-9 p.m. Tickets: $10 at the door, no reservations. Location: Chez Bushwick, 304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11, Brooklyn, NY 11206. Phone: 718.418.4405 Web: www.chezbushwick.net Trains: L to Morgan Street Directions: Exit back of the train. Turn LEFT outside the station. Turn LEFT onto Boerum Street. The screening portion of the program will be just over an hour and discussion will follow. The following dance animation videos will be screened: BALLET DANCER WARM-UPS (2007) -- 1:13 minutes 2D animator Susan Chien, for a life-drawing class at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, created a hand-drawn animation with a stop-motion feel that captures the movements of a human model. BODY NAVIGATION (2008) -- 8:08 minutes Recoil Performance Group's dance installation with real-time, interactive graphics, premiered in Copenhagen as part of Danish Dance Theatre's LABYRINTH. Choreography by Tina Tarpgaard, and visual and interaction design by Ole Kristensen and Jonas Jongejan. Chandon -- AFTER PARTY (2007) -- 34 seconds A combination of live action and computer graphics were used in this TV commercial featuring a Tango-dancing wireframe couple constructed from a champagne bottle cap. Produced by advertising agency Dentsu America. CSI: NY -- "SECOND LIFE Virtual Experience" (2007) -- 1:47 minutes Nightclub dancing scene from CSI: NY. Machinima pioneers ILL Clan produced the in-world animations for CBS where a killer is tracked in the SECOND LIFE virtual world. EN TUS BRAZOS (2006) -- 5:20 minutes A 3D narrative-based animation about a tragic accident that befalls a great Tango dancer of the 1920s. Direction and animation: François-Xavier Goby, Matthieu Landour and Edouard Jouret. FEET OF SONG (1988) -- 5:27 minutes Inspired by African music and art, U.K.-based 2D animator and dancer Erica Russell, who grew-up in South Africa, explores rhythms, colors and moving forms. GHOSTCATCHING (1999) -- 7:10 minutes Digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar composed this 3D animation based on the captured movement and sound phrases of choreographer Bill T. Jones. This art installation premiered at The Cooper Union School of Art. HUMAN SKATEBOARD (2007) -- 32 seconds A stop-motion TV commercial created for Sneaux Shoes by animation and video production company PES. Sneaux fans are encouraged to create and share their own stop-motion skateboarding adventures. ILLUMINATED (2007) -- 4:13 minutes Animator Kevin Abbott modeled a 3D metallic character that moves to the motion-captured sequence of dancer David Curwen. Created and performed at Western Michigan University. "Joinville Dance Festival Promotion" (2008) -- 30 seconds 3D animated video promotion for dance festival in Brazil. Design and characters inspired by illustrations of dance steps in teaching magazines. Direction: Frederico Freire, animation: Magno Borgo. KINETICS (2008) -- 2:53 minutes Chicago-based visual designer Nicholas Schrunk produced this video that features the interplay of motion graphics and the break dancing of Damion "Daylight" Day, recorded with a high-speed video camera. MR.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF 05) is North America's oldest and largest animation festival. The festival is broken up into four umbrella categories. The first is for animated feature films. The New Media Competition covers Animation Short Made for the Internet, Internet series, interactive animation and "Machinima," films made with videogame software. Commissioned Films Competition covers educational, scientific or industrial film, advertising film, station-program identification, music video, television special, television pilot, television series for adults and television series for children. Independent Short Films Competition covers narrative short film under 35 minutes, non-narrative short film under 35 minutes, first film and films made for children. Founded in 1976, and held biennially ever since, the OIAF attracts international animators, producers, broadcasters, and enthusiasts to Ottawa to view films entered in and out of competition, and attend special screenings and workshops that ponder the current state and future of animation. For more information, visit www.animationfestival.ca or www.awn.com/ottawa, e-mail info@animationfestival.ca or call (613) 232-8769.

Created in 1998, Forum Brasil is Latin America's leading TV programming trade show. Representatives from more than 20 countries use the forum as a marketplace to find great products, share experiences, get new information, analyze local markets, and engage in profitable business networking. Forum Brazil features: * International seminar with top-tier names in programming and production * 30-minute sessions with channel executives from Brazil and other countries detailing their acquisition policies * Pitching of animation, documentary, series and feature projects * Screenings of programs and pilots via a fully automated system * Great networking, acquisitions, co-production and distribution opportunities Broadcasters, pay-TV channels, distributors and independent producers from Brazil, other Latin American countries, the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe have made Forum Brasil a regular fixture of their business schedule. For additional information, visit www.forumbrasiltv.com.br.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents a conversation with stop-motion animators the Brothers Quay titled "The Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets" as part of the Art in the First Person lecture series. Moderated by SVA faculty member Thyrza Goodeve, the Quay Brothers will discuss their work in film and theater including their forthcoming feature SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS. The event will take place on Thursday, April 2 at 6:30pm in the Visual Arts Theater (333 West 23 Street) and is free and open to the public. "The Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets" is co-presented by the BFA Fine Arts, BFA Visual and Critical Studies and MFA Art Criticism and Writing Departments at SVA. Visit www.sva.edu for more information. American identical twins working in London, the Brothers Quay find their inspiration in Eastern European literature and classical music and art. Their work is distinguished by its dark humor and an uncanny feeling for color and texture. Masters of miniaturization, they turn their tiny sets into unforgettable worlds suggestive of long-repressed childhood dreams. According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, the primary work of the Quay Brothers "is the arcane and highly specialized art of puppet animation. Yet what they accomplish in the nightmarish shorts for which they are best known is closer to the medieval practice of alchemy than to any identifiable modern pursuit." Born in Pennsylvania in 1947, Stephen and Timothy Quay studied illustration in Philadelphia before attending the Royal College of Art in London. They began making animated shorts in the 1970s and are best known for their classic 1986 film STREET OF CROCODILES, which filmmaker Terry Gilliam selected as one of the ten best animated films of all time. Their recent work includes IN ABSENTIA, an award-winning collaboration with Karlheinz Stockhausen; four short films made in collaboration with composer Steve Martland for a live event at the Tate Modern in London; and THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES, their second full-length feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005. The Brothers Quay have directed music videos for His Name is Alive, Michael Penn, Sparklehorse, 16 Horsepower, and Peter Gabriel (contributing to his celebrated "Sledgehammer" video), and have also directed commercials for, among others, MTV, Nikon, Murphy's beer and Slurpee. The Quay Brothers' work also includes set design for theater and opera, including their 1998 Tony-nominated work for the acclaimed Broadway revival of Ionesco's THE CHAIRS.

Teenage filmmakers screen a series of animated and live-action works made in various Community Arts Partnership programs under the direction of CalArts instructors led by Nancy Buchanan, Reggie Coleman, Ruben Esqueda, Leo F. Hobaica Jr., Brooke Keesling, Cynthia Overman, Chris Peters and Trixie Sweetvittles. Funded by The JL Foundation. Coproduced by the Community Arts Partnership with Banning