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Anima Brussels Announces 2008 Highlights

Anima 2008 is taking place in the Flagey centre (Brussels) from Feb. 1-9. As part of the event, the Futuranima forum will also take place in Flagey Feb. 7-9, and is for animation professionals, students and enthusiasts interested in discovering what goes on behind the scenes of selected productions. The festival is kicking off early this year in all the Flagey movie theaters, in Brussels, as well as the Film Museum for part of a retrospective on Max Fleischer.

A double opening bill features FEAR(S) OF THE DARK, a new animated film created by a collection of internationally reputed comic book artists including Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard Mc Guire and Etienne Robial. FEAR(S) OF THE DARK will open Anima, while the Swiss-Belgian co-production MAX & CO by the Guillaume brothers, will be the opener for the kids the next day.

Both of these films have their own exhibition in Flagey and are the subject of a Futuranima conference.

The Anima international competition takes on a new look this year with the arrival of a new category for music videos and commercials running alongside the short films and features. The feature category is rich this year with fourteen selected features and eight in competition. There are 79 short films in the international competition, 22 in the Belgian competition and 40 in the "commercials and music videos" competition category. Added to those, there are also 29 shorts in the out-of-competition section that can be seen during the "Nuit animee," and 14 Belgian shorts in "panorama".

Three different juries will judge the films in competition. The international short film jury is made up of Arthur de Pins (France), Fumio Obata (Great Britain) and Regina Pessoa (Portugal). The international jury for commercials and music videos is made up of Belgian professionals Mehdi Dewalle (Art Director), Jan Bultheel (filmmaker) and Sergio Honorez (filmmaker). The Belgian short film jury is made up of cartoonist Nix, filmmaker Cecilia Marreiros and Laurent Valière, journalist and filmmaker at France Inter.

Two great influences in contemporary animation are Anima's guests this year. PES is an American who takes different everyday objects and turns them into quirky and spectacular commercials for such brands as Nike, Orange, Baccardi and Diesel. His short films are also full of his own brand of crazy and sometimes caustic humor. Rosto is Dutch and originally from the alternative music scene. He has since fallen in love with animation and developed his very own dynamic and dark personal universe, bordering on gore and gothic, but still remaining true to his musical roots.

Additionally, in collaboration with the Film Museum, Anima is paying tribute to Max Fleischer (1883 - 1972), with two features and a representative collection of his short films to be shown at Anima and the Film Museum. Strangely enough, few European festivals have focused on this giant of American animation until now.

Other events include: SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre, Wavelength 07, 60 years of Polish animation, young Polish animation, young German animation, PRINCE ACHMED, Le Chevalier d'Eon, THE PIXAR STORY, Cartoon d'Or and a children's festival.

For more information, visit www.anima2008.be.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks