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ANIMAFEST ZAGREB 2008

Far and away the best parts of the festival for me were the special programs. Anima Docs alone was well worth the entire trip to the festival. Curated by Erik van Durnen and Gerben Schermer for the International Documentary Film Festival 2007 in Amsterdam, the five programs give us a chance to decide for ourselves if the animated documentary is fiction posing as reality or not.

Winsor McCay’s 1916 Sinking of the Lusitania is an obvious propaganda piece designed to stir up anti-German sentiments during WW I. At the other end of the spectrum, in Springtime in Sant Ponc (2007) Swiss animators Eugenia Mumenthaler and David Epiney recorded the results of a drawing workshop for mentally handicapped people. It gives a glimpse into their thoughts and fears via animation.

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Animafest Zagreb 2008

Nancy Denney-Phelps reports from the festival known for its relaxed atmosphere and warmth, where big changes were in evidence this year.

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MONSTRA, A MONSTER OF A FESTIVAL Part One

MONSTRA, Lisbon Animated Film Festival (May 8 -18 in Portugal) is indeed a monster of a festival. For 11 days the festival brought together the cream of United Kingdom animators for a salute to British Animation along with quality competition programs. The British segment included workshops and retrospectives honoring Paul Bush, Phil Malloy, the Brothers Quay, Vera Neubauer and many other artists.

The American born identical twins Stephen and Timothy have lived in England for so long (since 1978) that they are considered an important fixture on the British film scene. Their highly surreal films are full of personal and distinctive imagery that can be disturbing and riveting at the same time. Two retrospectives of their work were screened.

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ANIMART ’08 in Monodendri, Ioannina, Greece

The 2^nd ANIMART, a summer meeting about animation and related arts, will be held 13 through 20 July in Monodendri, near Ioannina, Greece. 2008 is the Year of Intercultural Dialogue and so workshops and programs will be presented by many leading professionals from around the world.

Workshops will include clay animation conducted by Rony Oren from Israel; animator and ex libris creator extraordinaire Rastko Ciric of Serbia will lead the Cartoon Animation workshop and Portugal’s Fernando Galrito will lead participants through “The Draw and the Pixilation”.

Mohamed Ghazala of Egypt will give us a glimpse into Egyptian and African animation, and Nik and I will talk about the history of music through animation. Nik and Rastko will reprise their musical act in the amphitheatre with a moonlight concert featuring what else? - Moon songs!

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ALEXANDER TATARSKY, OR HOW TO EMBRACE THE IMMENSE . . .

As I watched noted director and film critic Natalia Lukinyk's touching moving documentary film Alexander Tatarsky, Or How To Embrace The Immense . . . I found it hard to believe that it has been almost a year since one of the biggest hearts in Russian animation stopped beating. Natalia's touching celluloid portrait began as part of her new trilogy of films about creative Russian and Ukrainian artists in three different fields titled The Restless Talents. Sadly the film was completed as a labor of love after the untimely death of her close friend.

Natalia gives us a warm and insightful view into the early life that shaped a true artistic genius. Humorous moments of Alexander playing with his beloved toy collection which he said every grown-up child needed and pictures of him with his dogs and cats that played an important part in his life from early childhood show one side of this very complex man. Most beautiful of all are the pictures of him with his wife and of him holding his young son at home in Moscow.The great director and animator went on to found Pilot Studios, the first private animation studio in the new Russia, turning it into one of the world's leading animation studios. Pilot is world renowned, winning awards at festivals the world over and mentoring several decades of animators and script writers that now work in all corners of the world. Speaking of his dear friend and colleague at Pilot, Valentin Telegin said "He took up a flag and led the troops." This quote complete summarizes the great man's life.

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15th INTERNATIONAL TRICKFILM FESTIVAL - STUTTGART ‘08

My spring festival season got off to a great start in Stuttgart, Germany at the 15^th INTERNATIONAL TRICKFILM FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILMS, May 1 through the 6^th. For Nik and me the big event of the week was to finally get to see the entire 82 minutes of Nina Paley’s wonderful feature film SITA SINGS THE BLUES. Although Nik composed and performed the intermission music for the film we had only seen segments and we were very curious about how Nina would fit the pieces together. Her use of three Indian voices in an unscripted conversation about the Sita legend worked beautifully to connect the action sequences. The fact that the voices were disagreeing about how they believe the history of Sita and Rama should be told was a perfect counterpoint to the 1920’s Annette Hanshaw vocals that accent both Sita and Nina’s stories. SITA SINGS THE BLUES was screened in the festival theaters and also on the gigantic out door beer garden screen to an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds. Prior to the screening Nik played music from the film to set the mood.

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Exciting Annecy Headline!!!

Nik and I have just returned from the Annecy International Animation Festival where the Cristal for the Best Feature Film was won by Nina Paley for SITA SINGS THE BLUES. Nik and I are so thrilled for Nina who put five years of work into making this remarkable film all by herself, and we are so glad that she will be able to have a social life again!

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LAST DAY OF ANIMAFEST ZAGREB . . . AND THE WINNER IS . . .

hosted a lovely brunch for the ASIFA members at the festival. Buba (former head of ANIMAFEST ZAGREB and Vice President of ASIFA Croatia) and Vesna Dovnikovic (Secretary of ASIFA International) brought tasty and powerful traditional Croatian liquors which truly added to the festive air of the party. A good time was had by everyone.

The big event of the day was the awards ceremony and I believe that the juries did an excellent job, so without further ado the winners are . . .

GRAND COMPETITION

Jury: Joanna Quinn (Great Britain), Moustapha Alassane (Niger), Caroline Leaf (USA/Canada/Great Britain), Igor Kovaljov (Russia/USA) and Danijel Suljic (Croatia)

GRAND PRIZE (best short film in the festival) - festival statue, cash award of 2.500 Euros, and honorary presidency at the next festival

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ANIMAFEST ZAGREB Day 5

The ANIMAFEST staff planned a trip to the country with a picnic for festival guests, but sadly it had to be canceled due to rain. Instead that hosted a lovely and delicious lunch for us all at a near by restaurant. It would have been a great treat to take a drive in the country - but since the rain came down in buckets it was very wise of them to change plans.

Wednesday highlights included a retrospective of Joanna Quinn's wonderful work and World Classics selected by Clare Kitson which included such great films as What's Opera Doc? and Raoul Servais' Harpya. For those who heard her speak the day before about Yuri Norstein and his wonderful film Tale of Tales, but hadn't had the opportunity to see the film, she included it in her program.

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ANIMAFEST ZAGREB Day 4

Yesterday the rain came down but it didn't dampen the spirits at ANIMAFEST ZAGREB. The two highlights of the day for me were Clare Kitson's talk and the final presentation of the Priit Parn retrospective.

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ANIMATION MARCHES ON IN ZAGREB - Day three at ANIMAFEST

I started out my viewing day at the Anima Docs program which was by and large a very strong session. Even though I have seen John Canemaker's beautifully animated The Moon and the Son many times it never fails to move me. Dennis Tupicoff's gut wrenching film His Mother's Voice moved the entire audience. This Australian film uses the voice over of a mother whose son was shot, and Dennis told me that he had originally heard her talking in a radio interview which had such an emotional impact on him that he had to animate her story.

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ANIMA FEST ZAGREB Day Two

There was a special evening screening of the Lotte Reiniger silent classic The Adventures of Prince Achmed with live piano accompaniment. Three screening sessions will be devoted to African animation and five screening sessions of Anima Docs, the hybrid form mixing animation and documentary. The first two parts of the International Competition were also screened. Just in case my readers don't think that I am having any fun, I was out with a group of young animators from all over the world at a bar that stayed open until 5 AM for us. More tomorrow.

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This week at Zagreb Animafest 2008

I arrived in Zagreb, Croatia for ANIMAFEST ZAGREB 2008 (May 31 to June 5) early on the morning of the 31st after a 22 hour train ride from Gent. Luckily this ride proved to be much less eventful than my trip to Russia two years ago, and the ride went smoothly.

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KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival call for Entries

September 12, 13, and 14

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Sita Sings the Blues

Nik and I have always followed Nina Paley's animation career with delight and amazement. Her new feature length film SITA SINGS THE BLUES is indeed a crowning achievement and Nik is very honored and pleased to be a small part of it by creating some music for the film.

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FINDING ANIMATION IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

I recently found an animated world in my hometown of Gent, Belgium in a most unexpected place: the Campus Volkskliniek Hospital operating room where I had eye surgery. I can’t say that I felt no anxiety; after all, I was lying on a hospital gurney with an IV in my arm and an oxygen tube up my nose, knowing that an incision was about to be made into my eye and that I wasn’t even going to be given good drugs or knocked out. But with impending blindness as the alternative, I chose my only option.

About a year ago, I began to think that the projectors at the animation festivals were getting very fuzzy and I kept moving further and further toward the front row to see the screen. It became obvious to me that the problem was not with the projectors, but with my eyes. This was a big problem, since I spend a great deal of my time in screening rooms, and what animation festival would want a blind juror, much less a “visually challenged” journalist.

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ANIMA BRUSSELS: The Festival In My Back Yard

The 10^th Anima Brussels, February 1^st through the 10^th, was a thoroughly enjoyable festival with a wide range of films and panel discussions. Unlike most animation festivals, Anima is put together by the staff primarily for the public, rather than for animators. Of course, there were special guests including the Dutch director and designer Rosto, but the real thrust of the screenings is directed at the movie going public.

The sold out opening night film, Peur (s) Du Noir (Fear(s) of the Dark) is a French-American co-production directed by Etienne Robial. Six internationally renowned comic book artists: Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire delved deeply into their own nightmares and fears to recreate them in stark black and white and shades of gray. In the opening story, which I thought was the strongest, Blutch introduces us to a sadistic old man walking a pack of ferocious dogs. Other segments include a man haunted by a praying mantis, a girl possessed by the ghost of a Sanuarai, and in another, a man has an encounter with the ghosts in an abandoned house.

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ANNECY ANNOUNCES FEATURE FILM NOMINEES.

Congratulations to all of the nominated animators. Nik and I send a special YEAA!!! to Nina Paley because Nik created and performs the intermission music on the film.

The nine films selected for the feature film category at Annecy 2008 have been selected.

They are:

--APPLESEED: EX MACHINA (Shinji Aramaki -- Japan): Following the non-nuclear war that killed half the world's population, the city-nation ofOlympus stands as a beacon of hope in a world of chaos and conflict.

--CHASSEURS DE DRAGONS (Guillaume Ivernel, Arthur Qwak -- France, Germany, Luxembourg): Zoe is a little girl who believes in fairy tales. So in order to help her uncle Lord Arnold get rid of a terrible dragon, Zoe decides she has to find some heroes.

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THE SMURF’S CELEBRATE THEIR 50th BIRTHDAY IN GENT

Last Saturday and Sunday (March 15 and 16) the Smurfs came to my home town of Gent, Belgium to celebrate their 50^th Birthday. The tiny blue figures, who live in little mushroom homes and speak their own language, first appeared as comic strip figures in cartoonist Pierre Culliford’s cartoon “Johan and Pirlouit” which was set in the middle ages.

The Smurf’s popularity increased rapidly, and by 1960 Papa Smurf and his clan had their own comic strip. Hanna-Barbera Productions brought the characters to life as an animated cartoon in 1981, and they soon became a hit around the world.

Although the Belgian born Culliford, or Peyo, as he is better know to his legion of fans, passed away 15 years ago, he lives on in he hearts of two generations of children around the world. The Smurfs are known in Spain as Pitufo, in Germany they are called Schumpf; Chinese children know them as Nam Ching Ling, and as Sumafa in Japan. Israeli children call them Dardassim. The Smurfs have teamed up with UNICEF to raise awareness of the plight of ex-child soldiers in Africa and this year they will promote children’s rights and education worldwide.

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EXPLORING THE WORLD OF CINECITTA STUDIOS AT I CASTELLI ANIMATI

It was quite a change from cold Estonia and Latvia to arrive at the sunny Rome airport. I had the honor to be invited to be a juror at the I Castelli Animati, 28 November through 2 December. This year the festival was held on the Cinecitta Campus, home to the legendary Cincecitta Studios, in honor of the 70^th anniversary of the founding of this famous studio which stands as a symbol of Italian cinema. After a month where I traveled back and forth across Europe and Nik stayed in Gent working on music we were finally reunited when my driver left me at the festival hotel.

The festival encompassed many facets of the animation world from workshops, competitions for special effects, television series and web to the International Competition where I was on the jury. There were also a multitude of special guests from all over the world. The opening evening gala served as a sampling of the diversity of the festival that awaited us. Bruno Bozzetto’s new animated theme for the festival was premiered. The Pierce Sisters, winner of the 2007 Cartoon D’ Or was followed by the first four competition films. Nik performed his score for Fetch! as Nina Paley’s animation was screened and David Silverman talked about the birth of THE SIMPSONS on the Tracey Ullman Show.

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