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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.8 - NOVEMBER 2000
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The Daily Report: I Castelli Animati, Genzano Di Roma
Day 4: 7th of October 2000 Rumours fly concerning the possible appearance of Paul McCartney, a famous musician who played guitar in a band called Wings. Before he was good enough to play in Wings he cut his chops in an earlier band called, The Beatles. Paul is the executive producer of a new animated film directed by Oscar Grillo, the well-known Argentine born London, England-based animator and director. The film, Shadow Cycle, is based on music composed by the late Linda McCartney, who was married to Paul prior to her too early death by cancer. The film is not completed and this will be a first test screening before an audience. Killing of an Egg, part of the Paul Driessen retrospective, begins the day. It is a simple idea, two and a half minutes long with voices in English, but with a very Italian accent, exactly how Paul made it in 1977. For some audience members this audio twist added spice to the screening. Later in the day, Veliki Miting, directed by Walter and Norbert Neugebauer in 1951, in Croatia, is shown to an audience unaffected by the propaganda in the film. An animator who worked on the picture, Milan Goldschmiedt, was interviewed by Luca Raffaelli. Veliki Miting's soundtrack was all in Croatian and the following interview was all in Italian. Another foreign name appears on this day's schedule of events, Jan Pinkava. Jan is the Oscar winning director of Geri's Game made at Pixar Studios, and Jan, despite the middle European moniker, speaks English with an English accent, laced with California slang picked up working around the propeller heads at Pixar. Jan is also on the competition jury at this festival. There are some sessions with Bruno Bozzetto, world famous and always funny director of many Italian animated films. Bruno has fallen in love with computer animation programs and demonstrates how he made, Europe & Italy, a simple and hilarious comparison between the habits of Italians and the rest of European citizens. Evidence of Bruno's accuracy in describing Italian behaviour is on constant display at I Castelli Animati. Between films and sometimes during films, lights will go on when they should be off and off when they should be on; one cell phone will ring and many people will answer their similar sounding phones; and wrong films will suddenly be projected with or without sound, and whether or not another film is already up on the screen. The Dutch contributed to the mayhem by sending Evert de Beyer's Characters, instead of Paul Driessen's Home on the Rails. In Home on the Rails, Paul uses his famous trick of having a character disappear during a walk from one side of the screen to the other, and then re-appearing exactly where and when it should without having to make all of the 'getting there' drawings. In the Konstantin Bronzit retrospective Switchcraft is screened. Konstantin won the Annecy International Animation Festival's Grand Prix in 1995 for this film. Switchcraft is a kind of homage to Paul Driessen, and Konstantin uses this save the drawings technique to good effect in the film. Too bad Home on the Rails was not sent as the audience would have had a better time seeing Bronzit's picture after Driessen's. Wendy Tilby, Canadian director/animator was also on the jury at I Castelli Animati. Her films as director and When the Day Breaks, co-directed with Amanda Forbis, also a Grand Prix winner at Annecy (1999), were shown today. Wendy has taken leave from the National Film Board of Canada to teach at Harvard. After the Tilby, Bronzit and Driessen homages, a Web animation competition was held, and then finally the awards for this edition of I Castelli Animati were handed out. After the awards, a speech by the mayor of Genzano di Roma, the host city of the animation festival, a screening of Un Pesce e' un Pesce by Giulie Gianini and Leo Lionini, and some shuffling around near the main entrance of the Cinema Modernissimo, in walked Paul McCartney. In walked a number of uniformed politizi, some big bodyguards and fewer than two dozen paparazzi, cameras flashing away, a couple of Italian television crews and four or five street urchins. By now, with the awards ceremony running longer than anticipated, even by Italian standards, everyone's stomachs were growling and the heat in the cinema was growing in intensity by the minute. At this time Shadow Cycle went onto the screen. There were speeches by Oscar Grillo, Paul McCartney and Luca Raffaelli. The mayor of Genzano attempted to get up and give another speech, or to repeat the speech he gave earlier in the evening, but he was pushed back into his seat by a group of autograph hounds headed for Mr. McCartney. The festival ended on a high note. The Italian newspapers all carried the news of Shadow Cycle, Paul McCartney, Paul's unofficial translator, Irene Duranti and the grand work of festival staff members such as: Emanuela Marrocco, Anna Castellani, Vincenzo Silvestri and Fiero Fortini. I Castelli Animati is a great festival. It is small, even intimate, but full of animation spirit, live and uniformed brass bands, the M.C. talents and canny film selection of Luca Raffaelli and very appreciative audiences. All the elements required for continuing success for any animation festival. END/KRAJ
Marv Newland began a career in the making of animated films and the production of illustrations in 1969 following an education in the arts at Los Angeles Art Center College of Design. He created the animated short film Bambi Meets Godzilla and designed many television commercials until late 1970 when he moved to Toronto. In 1975, he founded the animated film production company International Rocketship Limited, where he continues to produce animated short films by other directors and is also engaged in the production of animated films for the National Film Board of Canada.
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