Nancy Denney-Phelps's Recent Posts

Nik and I want to thank everyone who sent us such lovely e-mails of condolances about Kirby's passing -- they have made us feel so much better but even though we miss him terribly he did live to a ripe old Dalmation age and spent the last year touring Europe with us (he could bark very expertily in Flemish which is more than we can do).

Through the miracle of modern computers I will be reading my story about my train trip to Russia on the radio show TALES FROM THE EARTH, KUSF 90.3 FM on Wednesday, April 11 at 7:30 PM (San Francisco time -- everyone else has to do the time conversions if they want to hear it). For more information visit www.talesfromearth.com - web cast www.live365.com/stations/kusf and iTunes. The guest the week before me is poet Laurence Ferlinghetti.

Dear Friends:

This article is about our trip to the CINANIMA Animation Festival in
Espinho, Portugal in November. Tomorrow I leave for my last week of
teaching in Lucerne, Switzerland and a short visit with my son in Munich.
In a few weeks I will write a long update about our (very happy) life here
in
Gent and the adventures and mysteries of our first holiday season here.

Warmest Regards,
Nancy

30th CINANIMA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL

If an animator friendly festival with excellent screening conditions and top notch animation is not enough for you, then you need to go to Cinanima, 6 through 12 November in Espinho, Portugal. Added to all of the above was the beautiful beach right outside of our hotel room with warm water and after the cold weather I had just left in Switzerland it was sometimes difficult to go into the screening room. The 30th Anniversary of the Festival offered so many delights that my efforts were well rewarded.

Who says that Nik and I can't be in two places at once. While we were
celebrating a very quiet Thanksgiving Day in Gent (no turkeys harmed in our
home that day) our alter egos were partying away at Tracy and Richard's
fabulous party thanks to the master work of Chris de Monterey.

Holiday Greeting to All,

Nik, Nancy, Molly and Kirby

Dear friends

Great news!!!

As of 1 October Nik, Nancy, Kirby and Molly have a home!!!!

We are in the very center of Gent in a VERY tiny house (yes, that's right we
actually found a house) with a private patio no less.

We invite you all to come visit us but no more than two people at a time
because any more than that will have to sleep in the bath tub (yes, we have
the luxury of a bath tub)

Please continue to write us at our post office box.

Pictures included . . .

Love,

Nik, Nancy, Molly and Kirby

Well, dear friends, here is what hapened at KROK after I finally arrived on
the boat -- it was smooth sailing from then on. I also do discuess the
animation least you think that I was not in the screening room.

I hope this gives you a little flavor of this unique Animation Festival.

Cheers,
Nancy

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THE 13TH ANNUAL KROK INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL of ANIMATION by Nancy
Denney-Phelps

The KROK International Festival of Animation is my favorite annual event.
Each year it is a seagoing experience in which 200 animators from around the
world spend 14 days steaming down rivers while watching animation and having
the opportunity to make truly lasting friendships. It alternates between
being held in Russia and Ukraine. This year participants gathered in Moscow
on August 7 at the Dom Kino, home of the Russian Filmmakers Union, for the
overnight bus ride to Nizhniy Novgorod. There they boarded the river cruiser
Marshall Zhukov to watch animation, eat, drink, to dance under the stars
until sunrise, and to have far too much fun!

THE BEST ANIMATION FESTIVAL THAT I NEVER SAW by Nancy Denney-Phelps

If you remember my article about the Zagreb International Festival of
Animation two years ago you may recall how much I loved the Festival. From
the moment you arrive you feel that you are with family. The Festival's
director Margit Antauer, affectionately known as Buba, does everything to
make you feel welcome and her fabulous staff works overtime to try to tend
to your every need.
This year's event took place June 12-17. As I settled in to watch the
opening awards ceremony and the first competition program, little did I know
that this would be one of my rare spates of carefree animation watching
here, thanks to the ASIFA International board and committee meetings which I
needed to attend. True to past years, the opening competition program was
very strong, ranging from the National Film Board of Canada's Louise by
Anita Lebeau which I wrote about in the Annecy 2005 article, Ivan Maximov's
Wind Along the Coast which we screened at our two farewell performances in
the Bay Area and John Canemakers' Oscar winning film Moon and the Son: An
Imagined Conversation. Following the screening, there was a lovely welcoming
party.

All of our San Francisco friends know what we went through in our last month
in the city -- and I must say that we could not have done the move without
the amazing help of all of you. Finally after MONSTRA we got the chance to
have a few days off on the North coast of Spain, where Nik promptly got sick
but Kirby, Molly and I enjoyed the lovely beach and I actually got the
chance to start writing and actually read a book -- now off to The Annecy
International Festival of Animation!!!

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2006 Annecy International Animation Festival

Once again this year I found the animation at Annecy by and large to be a big yawn!!! The quality of the competition films was exceptionally low -- there were entire programs that I came out of thinking “Why did I have to sit through that?” Films that I would normally have thought “That was OK, but . . .” seemed to be a breath of fresh air and the few really good films – Joanna Quinn’s DREAMS AND DESIRES – FAMILY TIES, A RAM AND A GOAT and PRINTED RAINBOW really stood out. For those familiar with Quinn’s two previous award winning films featuring her character Beryl (GIRL’S NIGHT OUT and BODY BEAUTIFUL), her new film treats us to an older Beryl who decides to plunge into the arts to help cushion her mid-life crisis. At the directors’ chat, Joanna said that this is the first of a four-part series about Beryl plunging into the arts. Needless to say, Beryl’s foray into the world of wedding video photographer ends in hilarious .disasters. A RAM AND A GOAT by Natalia Berezovaya, part of Pilot Moscow Animation Studio’s ambitious and beautiful series of animated folk tales from regions all over the former Soviet Union. I wrote very highly and in greater detail about this series last year after seeing samples at KROK. Each episode is in a different style by various Russian animators and covers a wide range of animation techniques. The lovely Indian film, PRINTED RAINBOW, by Gitanjali Rao, is a story, told through Indian matchbox covers, of a woman and her cat who live alone and travel vicariously through her beautiful match boxes. The film looks at loneliness and death in a positive and hopeful way.

Well, guys, I have been getting requests for new about our adventures -- I'm afraid that it is going to have to come in installments since we landed in Gent (which I love --now sitting in my office in a window over looking the canal -- occasionally a boat or barge comes by) and took off immediately to festivals but here goes the first part . . . laugh on . . . it's all good!!!

Love, Nancy

PS a couple of photos so you can get the feel of what we are up to. Also, sorry about the unedited state of the story but there just isn't any more time!!!