An exhibition of New Animation from Germany consisting of models,paintings, sketches and production shots from the works of eight youngGerman animators will be on display at Chapman University. The event takesplace Monday, November 1 - Wednesday, December 15, 1999 in Orange,California, USA. For more information including a screening schedule call:(714) 997-6729.
Lucasfilm's STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE took in $16.5 millionlast weekend (October 15 - 17), bringing its overseas gross to US$428million, surpassing its domestic gross of US$426.8 million. The film openedin France with US$11.02 million, the best ever opening in France for a USfilm.
The Goethe-Institut is presenting a program featuring nine new animatedshort films from Germany. In conjunction with this screening AcademyAward-winning visual effects specialist, Volker Engel, will be speaking.The German-born animator will comment on the film selections and discussanimation and special effects in general. Engel's credits include visualeffects work on GODZILLA and INDEPENDENCE DAY, for which he won the Oscar.Films from Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Heinrich Sabl, Thomas Stellmach, Tyron
The Ottawa International Student Animation Festival (SAFO) announced the grand prize winners in this year'scompetition on Sunday, October 24, 1999. The festival stated that, "Thisyear's winners show the high quality of work coming out of schools, bothlocally, nationally, and internationally."
The winners in the various competitions are as follows as reported by thefestival:
Grand Prix: Best Film In Competition -- GRACE, Lorelei Pepi, USA
Grand Prix: Best School In Competition -- Royal College of Art, England
The WB has already removed its new primetime animatedseries MISSION HILL from its Friday night line-up due to poor ratings. (Itspremiere episode finished 115th in the ratings for the week of October 4 -10.) It's expected to return as a midseason replacement. New episodes of SOUTHPARK return beginning next Wednesday, October 27 at 10 pm on COMEDYCENTRAL, with an all-new Halloween special, KORN'S GROOVY PIRATE GHOSTMYSTERY, guest starring the band, KORN. . . MTV is developing an animated
DISNEY PUBLISHING WORLDWIDE has made several appointments. GUIDOMASTROPAOLO has been named Director of Global Planning and BusinessDevelopment for Disney Publishing Worldwide. Located in Paris,Mastropaolo's duties will include leading international initiatives to growrevenue by negotiating acquisitions, new business ventures and majorlicensing deals in order to ensure meeting overall publishing financialgoals. In addition, he will co-manage the strategic planning process and
Copenhagen, Denmark-based A.FILM has finished a :40 spot for Daloon SpringRolls, Denmark's largest Chinese frozen food manufacturer. In the spot,which unveils a new product called Funsters, a dragon, called "daloon" inDanish, presents the product like a wise and distinguished old man, but thechildren's crazy antics off-screen cause him to lose his cool. The CGI spotwas animated using 3D Studio Max with a few live-action props. Craig Frankdirected. The word from Denmark is that after the spot aired for threeweeks, the product sold out.
This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes the Cartoons On TheBay International Festival of Television Animation in Italy, the 5th AnnualCommunicator Awards Video Competition in the US, as well as a Screening andExhibition on New German Animation in Los Angeles, USA. The Calendar ofUpcoming Events is a constantly changing reference source for what'shappening around the World of Animation. Use it to stay abreast ofanimation related activities across the globe. If you know of animation
The Goethe-Institut, a German cultural center, is presenting both anexhibition and a screening of nine new German animated short films in LosAngeles, California. The program includes films from Thomas Meyer-Hermann,Heinrich Sabl, Thomas Stellmach, Tyron Montgomery and Kirsten Winter. Inconjunction with this event, visual effects specialist, Volker Engel --whose credits include "Godzilla" and "Independence Day," for which he wonthe Academy Award -- will be speaking on the exhibition's selections and
Buena Vista's supernatural thriller THE SIXTH SENSE, with visual effects byDreamQuest, finished eighth at the US weekend boxoffice, grossing anestimated $5.2 million, for a total of $249.9 million. No other animationrelated films finished in the top ten.
Seven European animation companies have joined to form a company called theEuropean Animation Group, although its name is likely to change. The grouphopes to produce a minimum of one animated feature or series per year,beginning in 2001 with its first feature, the $15 million ELFQUEST, set togo into production in January 2000. The announcement was made at MIPCOMheld October 4 - 8 in Cannes, France. European Animation Group bringstogether seven companies. From France, the partners are
JAMES SOMMERVILLE, co-founder of THE ATTIK, has relinquished his mostrecent role as creative director of the New York branch to oversee thedevelopment of the company throughout its five offices in Huddersfield(England), London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney. While based inLondon, Sommerville will continue to direct both commercials and long formprojects through The Attik/New York and London. Also, The Attik's executiveproducer JIM MORAN has added managing director to his title and assumed
The Cinanima International Animated Film Festival will be held November8-14, 1999, in Espinho, Portugal. In addition to this year's officialcompetition program, as well as the retrospectives and exhibitions, thefestival web site now offers the festival daily program on their web site.
Yuri Norstein is considered one of the most remarkable directors to emergefrom the current generation of Russian animators. Norstein will be inCalifornia this upcoming week for an exceptional tour of major studios anduniversities. His California tour includes: ASIFA San Francisco and De AnzaCollege on Sunday, October 17; Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) on Monday,October 18; UCLA and CalArts on Tuesday, October 19; the Disney Studios andUSC on Wednesday, October 20; L.A. Art Centre & ASIFA-Hollywood on
United Kingdom's ITV Network Centre has commissioned a second series of 13episodes of the animated series THE STORYKEEPERS from Dublin, Ireland-basedMonster Productions, an animation studio and distribution company formed in1995 by former management and artists from the Don Bluth studios. The newseries, produced by Shepherd Films, and distributed by Monster Distributes,will be delivered in Spring 2001 for broadcast on Sunday mornings. The newseries, which is a prequel to the existing series, is set in AD 8, and
TIM BURTON'S NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (its official title) plays atDisney's El Capitan theater. El Capitan is located west of Highland onHollywood Blvd. The event takes place Friday, October 29 - Sunday, October31 in Hollywood, California, USA. For more information Tel. (323) 467-7674.
Whoever wants to know how the cliffhanger ending of the October 15, 1999 episode of SPACE GHOST:COAST TO COAST is resolved will have to win the auction that the CartoonNetwork is holding Friday, October 15 to Monday, October 18. CartoonNetwork is auctioning off the last page of that episode's script, whichwill not be part of the broadcast episode, to benefit Clowns WithoutBorders. The auction will be held at www.ebay.com. At the end of Friday'sepisode, which guest stars comedian Steve Wright, Space Ghost and cast find
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of Comedy Central's SOUTH PARK, have received permission tosample copyrighted Monty Python work for use in IT'S THE MONTY PYTHONSTORY. The animated special will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BBCcomedy series MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, which was created by GrahamChapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and TerryGilliam (the lone American in the group, who did the animation). Thespecial will include a spoof of the famous "Dead Parrot Sketch" entitled
The fourth edition of The Animated Castles film festival took place September 29 - October 3 in Rome,Italy. Here are this year's winners:
Grand Prize "I Castelli Animati":AU BOUT DU MONDE by Konstantin Bronzit, Russia.
Special Jury Prize:EUROPE & ITALY by Bruno Bozzetto, Italy.
Prize For The Best Debut Short Film:MIGRATIONS by Constantin Chamski, France.
Prize For The Best European Short Film:3 MISSES by Paul Driessen, Netherlands.
Special Audience Prize:
Bill Plympton has updated his appearances page. This month, his films willbe appearing in various festivals and other events in the US, UK, France,Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Taiwan. "I Married A Strange Person"will have its U.S. cable premiere on Cinemax on October 22, 1999. Billwill also be attending some of the events in the US, Italy and Germany.
Check out Bill's appearance schedule.
Raoul Servais' book & video, in honor of his gallery opening on AWN.
- Book: "Raoul Servais, A Painter-Filmmaker's Journey." Written by PhilippeMoins, this first monograph of Raoul Servais describes the making of hisfilms, his first activities as a painter and illustrator, his co-operationwith Magritte, his teaching years and his various artistic collaborations,but it mainly presents a critical analysis of his work. It ends with a textwritten by Jan Temmerman on the relationship between Servais and the city
One year ago, the Ottawa International Animation Festival awarded its grandprize to the new Estonian film, "Night of the Carrots," by Priit Pärn.Since making his first film, "Is the Earth Round" in 1977, animator,illustrator, and artist Priit Pärn has evolved into one of the mostinfluential animation artists in the world. His films are routinely invitedto animation festivals where they have won several major awards. PriitPärn's countrymen, Rein Raamat, Rao Heidmats and Mati Kutt, among others,
This week's update to the Calendar of Events features 11 new events,including the Tampere Short Film Festival in Finland, and a call forentries for the Milia 2000 New Talent Competition (competition ofinteractive projects) in France. The Calendar of Upcoming Events is aconstantly changing reference source for what's happening around the Worldof Animation. Use it to stay abreast of animation related activities acrossthe globe. If you know of animation related events that we don't have
The 2nd Matita International Animation Film Festival was held September 23- 26 in Guardiagrele, Italy. The jury consisted of Jury President GiulioCingoli (producer and director), Milan, Italy; Piotr Dumala (director,animator, and teacher at the Film School of Lodz), Warsaw, Poland; RuthLingford (director, animator, and teacher at the Royal College of Arts andNational Film & Television School of London), London, UK; Laura Ruggeri(student at the International Academy of Image, Lanterna Magica), L'Aquila,
The Cinanima International Animated Film Festival (held November 8-14,1999, in Espinho, Portugal), announced their '99 nominees. The selectionjury consisted of Menno De Nooijer (Netherlands), Manuel Matos Barbosa(Portugal), Antonio Melo (Portugal), Rodolfo Pastor (Spain) and PedroSerrazina (Portugal). Discover this year's official competition program, aswell as the retrospectives, exhibitions, and more. All is included on theFestival's official web site!
