This year marks the first year of the newly founded Platform Animation Festival. It is to be held in Portland, Oregon this June.
I first heard about it here at school, and was immediately interested not only because it's being hosted by my home town, but also because it claims to be a genesis of important animation festivals being hosted within the US.
With animation festivals around the world (such as Annecy and Ottawa) being a great way to celebrate animation as an art, and also a great place to establish connections with the animation world, it's very thrilling to see a serious international festival being hosted by the US.
I'm hoping collaborations like these continue, so that we could improve and enhance the state of US animation and animation as a whole.
Thoughts? Anyone here thinking of submission? The deadline has been extended to March 15, so if you're considering you better get on it. Go to http://www.platformfestival.com for more information if you'd like. I think a few CalArts students are submitting stuff, but I don't know about the world at large.
-moot
I'll be attending this year. I'll moderating at least one panel, yet to be determined.
Irene Kotlarz and Marilyn Zornado are great people with loads of insight and experience in running festivals as well as producing animation. I'm sure the event will be excellent and I'm looking forward to going.
I've been alot of places, but I've never been to Portland, so that's another plus for me.
Dan
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
I think it's great that there's another festival that's serious about animation in North America....especially in the U.S. There have been some previous attempts, but because of lack of govt funding or poor organization, they've failed. It might sound strange hearing this from one of the Ottawa organizers, but hey, there are a slew of animation festivals in Europe and they all co-exist quite well. Furthermore, look, the reality is that at Ottawa, we get almost 2000 films and only take about 100-130... so that's in the range of 5%. A lot of good films don't get shown (course, a lot of crap doesnt get shown either!). We just don't have the space/time/ability to show more films...so it's great for filmmakers that Platform can come along and provide some more screening space. I also like the fact that it's organized by people with roots in the animation festival circuit. There have been some sly figures trying to do animation festivals in the U.S. in the past.
And hey, Portland's a cool place--very Canadian actually!
Chris Robinson