Annecy 2011 - the first day

Happy animation week, dear fellow animators. I'm reporting live from the Annecy animation festival, which openned Yesterday. Due to internet connection problems, I'm only posting this today.
The coast is clear over the shiny lake, and hopefully we won't get across too much rain. A lovely start for a lovely week. Annecy animation festival is one of the largest and most important festivals in the world. Located in south of France, the view is literary breathtaking.

Besides a beautiful view, this year there's a wonderful program as well.
If you're a first timer, you can read my previous post on what to expect from the festival [1].
Join me this week for a little journey into the festival programs, and experience the festival day by day, or whenever the WiFi connection will make peace with us.

Although this year American feature films are strangely absent from the festival, the artists are here to expose their methods in making blockbusters such as Rango, Rio and Gnomeo and Juliet. Those films are also screened on the giant screen outside, but while I was planning to go, I forgot those outdoor screenings are only in French. Merde!

Bill Plympton, the one and only, is also here to host a workshop. And Peter Lord just finished presnting Aardman's latest collaborations with Sony Imageworks. More on that later...

But after all the excitement, the most interesting in my opinion, is the short films competition, and the other short films programs.

 
The first short animated films program yesterday showed some interesting pieces. Some that were already shown online, such as Patrick Jean's "Pixels [1]" and BLU's "Big bang big boom [2]". This time not only psychotic animation painted phisicly on buildings, but with some stop motion and pixilation as well. Here is is:

One of the most interesting films in this program is SUDD (Out of Erasers) by Erik Rosenlund. A film I like to call 'zombies by the artistic way'. The heroine struggle with a world that changes around her, but the infection is paper doodles.

The film that impressed me most was Kamil Polak's "The lost town of Switez" because of its technique. watch the film's trailer [3]:

Since simple black and white lines always get me, and that is what I personally love doing, I enjoyed Claudius Gentinetta and Frank Braun's film, "Sleep [4]". The  title is important in understanding this film's atmosphere and audio track.

If you are at the Annecy festival as well, you are more than welcome to say hello.
*Animatorit is signing out till the next WiFi connection*