JULY 2000:

It's Selection Time Again....and that means a birthday Under less stressful circumstances, Jarvis Neall, son of Chris Robinson and Kelly Neall is celebrating his 2nd birthday. To save time hauling around photos of the dear boy, we've included one here. Some of you will remember that Jarvis was born during the pre-selection process in 1998.

Selection Committee Change
Curtis Crawford has been forced to withdraw from the Selection Committee for Ottawa 00.

MAY 10, 2000:

New Internet Category
Ottawa 00 will feature a third competition devoted to internet animation. Logistics are still being ironed out, but we believe we have an exciting, innovative and interactive procedure for the competition.

Entrants fill out the entry forms, but instead of mailing us their films, they can put down the link to their film or email us their film (you can also send us a disc...we use PCs not MACS).

During pre-selection, the selection committee will view the films and select those for official competition.

For competition, we will have two prizes: Grand Prize for best internet animation (awarded by the international jury) and a Public Prize. Computers will be set up during the festival to enable attendees the chance to view and vote.

Deadline for entries is July 1, 2000.

Acclaimed Animator To Create Festival Poster For SAFO, we invited Jonas Odell to create the psycho rabbit for our 1999 festival. This year, British animator extraordinaire, Run Wrake (Jukebox, Music for Babies, Buttmeat) has agreed to create and design the Ottawa 00 poster.

In bringing this image to life, London based, Bermuda Shorts (also Run's home) will produce this year's festival signal film.

The poster will be unveiled in late May.

Honorary President
We are pleased to announce that Yvonne Anderson will serve as our Honorary President for Ottawa 00. For over two decades, Yvonne has served as a animator, teacher (Rhode Island School of Design) and widely influential organizer of children's workshops (Yellow Ball). Fittingly, Yvonne has attended every Ottawa festival except 1976. To celebrate Yvonne's previously unacknowleged contributions to animation, we will present a retrospective of her work, RISD school work, and children's films produced by Yellow Ball.

Yvonne will be in attendance throughout Ottawa 00.

Dem Da Breaks...
Festival director, Chris Robinson broke his ankle over the Easter break. Publically, he says it was a hockey accident, but with our charming supervisor, one suspects that he came to blows with the Easter bunny and lost. We are happy to say that Chris did start walking with a cane today and will be fully recovered by the end of May.

Newsletter #2 will be mailed out at the end of May. If you are not on our snail mail list, send us your full address.

MARCH 6, 2000:

Hello one and all. In order to serve you better, we will update the What's New section at the beginning of every month up until this year's festival. If you can wait you can always email, phone or fax us.

In this update you will find new pages about the selection committee, international jury, retrospectives, workshops along with news belows about a host of other essential items. French translation is coming!

We understand that some of you are having trouble finding the Ottawa 00 site. Obviously if you read this , it isn't a problem. The direct address is: http://www.awn.com/ottawa/ottawa00.

Entry forms are out
The Ottawa 00 entry forms and newsletters were mailed out throughout the world in February. You can also find the entry form on the festival website. We do owe an apology to jury member Jin Guo Ping, whose name was incredulously listed as Jin Xin Pong. Our apologies for this mistake.

New Award for Canadian Animators to be Introduced at Ottawa 00
Details coming soon....

Estonian Animation Volume 3 and 4
Those of you who purchased Contemporary Estonian Animation Volume 3: Mati Kutt might have noticed that a film, Smoked Sprat Baking in The Sun was missing from the tape. If you purchased the tape, please mail it back to the festival office and we will send you a corrected version. Sorry about that.

Volume 4 of the series will focus on the studio, Eesti Joonisfilm and include the films, Birthday, On the Possibility of Love (Janno Poldma), Gravitation, Violas (Priit Tender), Departure, Jaagup and Death (Heiki Ernits), Cappuccino and the award winning, Bermuda (Ulo Pikkov). Volume 4 will be released in the summer of 2000.

Chinese Animation Tapes
The OIAF, David Ehrlich, and the Shanghai Film Studio will be releasing two video cassettes of short films this fall in conjunction with the Chinese Animation retrospective at Ottawa 00.

Animate Ottawa 2000
Our collaborative project with local high schools students from Ottawa's Canterbury High School is under way. The kids have had one session courtesy of our local filmmakers Alyson Carty and Dan Sokolowski. On March 11, animator, teacher, and nice guy, David Ehrlich will be in town to speak with the young aspiring artists. Production of their short animated film, which will be premiered at Ottawa 00 begins this spring.

OIAF on the Road
The OIAF is presented Contemporary Canadian Animation screenings this year in Vietnam (March 17-25), Norway (May 3-7), Singapore (June 9-11), Toronto (April 17) and hopefully Calgary and Vancouver. Director Chris Robinson will accompany the screenings to talk about the festival and the current state of Canadian animation. Robinson will also travel to Rhode Island School of Art and Design on April 11 to talk about festivals and independent animation.

Increased Industry Exposure
In order to better acknowledge the artistic achievements of commercial studios, we have created a new Commissioned Films Competition. This new competition will include a number of categories that existed previously at Ottawa festivals including: educational, scientific or industrial films; music videos; commercials, program and station ids, television specials, television series (one episode per series). A new category has been added to showcase studio showreels. Prizes will be awarded to the winners in each category and a Grand Prix will be awarded to the best overall film chosen from these fields.

ASIFA General Assembly
For the first time ever ASIFA will hold its general assembly in North America at Ottawa 2000. We encourage all North American ASIFA members to come out, participate, and vote. And remember, ASIFA members receive a discount on festival passes.

Book Hotels Early
Hotels are very hard to find in Ottawa this year and we encourage attendees to book well in advance of the festival. The festival's central hotel will be the Cartier Place and Towers. A list of participating hotels is available on our website and we encourage you to book your rooms as early as possible. A complete list of hotel and travel information will be forthcoming in newsletter #2 (May).

New Chez-Ani Space
The Chez-Ani and Workshops will be located in two venues of the Arts Court building on 2 Daly Avenue (also the location of the festival office). The Chez-Ani will be hosted in the Saw Video Gallery Cafe, while the workshops, panels and demonstrations will take place in the Arts Court Library. The Arts Court is approximately a five minute walk from the National Arts Centre.

Special Screenings
Tentative tributes and retrospectives include: From Scratch: a survey of Scratch Animation; Jazz and Animation, Computer Animation in the 21st Century; Twenty Years of Pacific Data Images; the innovative work of the UK's Bermuda Shorts, George Pal, Yvonne Anderson, Gene Deitch, Jan Lenica, Pjotr Sapegin, Suzanne Gervais, Paul Fierlinger, René Jodoin, Chinese Animation, Australian Animation, New Canadian Animation, many new feature films, two special Anime screenings, the North American Premiere of a new Jan Lenica documentary and much much much more.

Workshops
In addition to our popular industry workshops (eg. New Tools of The Trade, Animating the Net; Preparing a Portfolio) there will be an emphasis on presentations that help develop creativity at Ottawa 00: Canadian animation legend Pierre Hébert will present a Scratch animation workshop where he will make a film before your eyes and Disney animator Mike Belzer (The Nightmare Before Christmas) will host a session on Puppet animation. Stay tuned for more details.

DECEMBER 17, 1999:

Ottawa Animation Festival to Recognize Industry Achievements

(December 3, 1999,Ottawa) North America's largest animation festival, the Ottawa International Animation Festival will recognize industry achievements in animation with a new competition devoted solely to commissioned works. Ottawa 00 takes place from September 19-24, 2000 at the National Arts Centre.

"When the International Jury awarded the Grand Prix to two films (Bird in The Window by Igor Kovalyov and The Simpsons: Homer 3D by Tim Johnson at Ottawa 96," notes Executive Director, Chris Robinson, "it became apparent that a single Grand Prix was not enough. In order to better acknowledge the artistic achievements of commercial studios, we have created a new Commissioned Films Competition. This new competition will include a number of categories that existed previously at Ottawa festivals including: educational, scientific or industrial films; music videos; commercials, program and station ids, television specials, television series. A new category has been added to showcase studio showreels. Prizes will be awarded the winners in each category and a Grand Prix will be awarded to the best overall film chosen from these fields.

As is custom, a Grand Prix will be awarded to the Best Independent Short Film. The Independent Short Film Competition will include categories for: Independent Short Film under 50 minutes; First Professional Film; Graduate Film, Films Made For Children (not part of a series).

Ottawa 00 entry forms will be available from the festival website on December 10 and will be available in print form in January 2000. If you would like to receive an entry form and be added to the festival mailing list, contact the festival office by phone (1-613-232-8769), fax (1-613-232-6315) or email (oiaf@ottawa.com). The deadline for entries is July 1, 2000.

Ottawa 00 programme information along with jury and selection committee choices will be announced in January 2000.