Cannes Film Festival Opens with animated film

The Cannes Film Festival Opens today with Pixar's Up, Directed by Pete Docter.



"By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America."

Carl is joined on his adventures by the young explorer and stow away, Russel. along the way they cross wild terrain, meet villains and jungle creatures and have close encounters with bi-planes and zepplins.

Pete also Directed Monsters Inc and has written for films such as WALL-E and Toy Story.

Watch Trailer

London film festival

The London Film Festival starts today and runs till the 30th looking at the website the collections of short animated films are already fully booked but the feature films are still available.

LFF Shortcuts and Animation


Barry the Worm


Mia and the Migoo


A Tale of Two Mozzies

Soho Shorts Winners

The winners of the animation section of the Soho Shorts festival were:

1st place
“Standup”
Directed by: Joseph Pierce
National Film and Television School

2nd place
“The Control Master”
Directed by: Run Wrake
Sclah Films

3rd place
“Sony Bravia: Play Doh”
Directed by: Frank Budgen and Darren Walsh
Passion Pictures

Soho Shorts

The Soho Short film festival started this weekend, there's still a chance to see some animation tomorrow and Wedneday.

Tuesday 29th, 10am, Curzon Soho
Tuesday 29th, 3pm, VMI
Wednesday 30th, 4pm, Crown & Two Chairmen

This years animated short films were:

Procrastination
Johnny Kelly
Royal College Of Art
A hands-on, gloves-off study into the practice of putting things off.

Sony Bravia – Play Doh
Frank Budgen & Darren Walsh
Passion
Plasticine bunnies take over New York.

Flat Earth
Thomson & Craighead
Goat Media Ltd
A journey round the world through the eyes of bloggers.

Userguides No.10: Administering First Aid
Richard Fenwick
Onedotzero
An ill-advised trip to the first-aid office.

Untitled (Wypke)
W Jannette Walen
About a girl in a room, and the experience of a minute.

Whale
Rob Wicksteed
Solent University
A conservative suburbanite struggles with the presence of an unwanted visitor.

The Accident
Sara Nesteruk
Black Watch Productions
A childhood memory is presented in a number of ways.

Headcases: Geriatric Action
Henry Naylor
Red Vision
Geriatric action heroes take on an evil marriage factory.

Glow
Jo Lawrence
Picasso Pictures
A story about the "radium girls" of the 1920s clock-dial factories.

The Electric Koi
Sam Lanyon Jones & Andrew Cope
Picasso Pictures
A young girl learns a lesson about loyalty and betrayal.

Operator
Matthew Walker
Arthur Cox
A man makes a phone call – and he answers.

Stand Up
Joseph Pierce
National Film And Television School
The truth behind a comedian’s jokes leaks through.

John and Karen
Matthew Walker
Arthur Cox
John the polar bear apologises to Karen the penguin after an argument.

Feast
Adel Kerpely &Jihyun Ahn
A fat man eats up everything around him. By the time he stops, it is too late.

Let Me In
Simon Tofield
Tandem Films
A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to get indoors.

The Weatherman
Will Becher
Seven Animation
When his forecasting machine malfunctions, a weatherman’s life takes a dark turn.

The Red Suitcase
Saul Freed
Black Watch Prod.
A knitted newcomer unsettles the peace of a small town.

Heather
Ed Suckling
Royal College Of Art
Sam finds a badly beaten woman outside his flat.

Where The Wild Things Are
Eddie Fett
Black Milk
Close your eyes and you might see where the wild things are.

Sun In The Night Time
Anne Wilkins
A mother waits for her lost son to return. Her daughter plays with an imaginary friend.

Sanctury
LK Dhaliwal
The true story of one woman’s struggle to gain asylum in the UK.

Nora
Amy Engles
Nora Productions
An android’s search for freedom leads her on a lonely journey to a new future.

The Control Master
Run Wrake
Sclah Films
In a peaceful half-tone city a heroine and her ally face the ultimate threat.

Josie’s La La Land
Eb Hu
Hybworks
A dying girl’s last words.

How To Destroy The World: Computer Games
Pete Bishop
The Shop/a and p
Four ways to destroy the world faster

The rest of the programme at can been see at:

http://www.sohoshorts.com/

Sci-fi-London - 30th April - 4th May

Sci-fi-London - The London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film starts next wednesday with the Arthur C Clarke awards and follows with a full programme of films and events over the next 5 days.

Although you are likely to see animation in the form of effects throughout the programme here are the specific animated items.

Dragon Hunters
Vexille
Anime all nighter

The Blink of an Eye shorts programme also contains many animated shorts:

Ascension, An Introduction To Lucid Dream Exploration, The Ambassador’s Brain, Contre La Montre, Fairy Tale, Final Journey, Marioneta and Simulcra

Full Programme for the festival

Birds Eye View Events

There's some good events this weekend for animators as part of the Birds Eye View festival that started yesterday.

On Sunday there's a programme of short films and animation, with the UK Premieres of Sally Arthur's A-Z and Lucy Izzard's One of the Family.

A-Z is a blend of Ink on paper and 3D and 2D CGI and Flash, it tells the story of Phyllis Pearsall tackling the monumental task of writing the A-Z. Sally Arthur studied at the RCA and now works for ArthurCox in Bristol.

After winning the New Animator award in 2005 with her film Tea Total, Lucy Izzard was commissioned by BBC Three to make a series of short animations. One of the Family is one of these films and is a humourous look at how pets are treated. This film was also also show as part of the British Animation Awards this year.

Also to be shown is the DepicT! award winning Flighty by Leigh Hodgkinson is a collage style animation previously seen at the Encounters Short Film Festival Bristol.

Also on Sunday is a seminar on Writing for computer games and tomorrow is a seminar on multiplatform films.

Film Festivals

Later this week is the Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol. The Festival, is now in its 13th edition and takes place from 21-25 November. There will be screenings, interviews, panel sessions, master classes, a film school and on Thursday 22nd, an Animation Symposium.
The Encounters Short Film Festival is launching a dedicated channel on Babelgum. From November 21st internet viewers will be able to watch material uploaded from the Encounters Film Festival for free, by downloading the Babelgum viewer.

Babelgum is also hosting it's own online film festival with Spike Lee named honorary Judge of Jury. Beginning 15 February 2008, submitted films will be showcased on the Babelgum Online Film Festival Channel, where the public will be able to rate each film. A prize of €20,000 will be awarded to winners in each of the six categories: The Babelgum Looking for Genius Award, The Babelgum Short Film Award, The Babelgum Documentary Award, The Babelgum Animation Award, The Babelgum Social/Environment Award and The Babelgum Spot/Advertising Award.

Babelgum is a free on-demand TV over the Internet that lets you watch whatever you want, whenever you want as often as you want. Content is uploaded by professional film makers.

http://www.babelgum.com/

Swansea Animation days is also soon, this International Animation, Games and SFX Conference runs from Monday 26th till Friday 30th November. "SAND includes conference sessions on games, procedural animation, films, post production techniques, TV commercials, motion capture, also with animation screenings from around the world, professional sector workshops and business seminar". Guest speakers include Apurva Shah, Effects Supervisor from Pixar Animation Studios and Shelley Page, Head of International Outreach from DreamWorks Animation. Workshops will be held on the topics of Acting For Animators,
Scriptwriting, Charac'ature Animation , Character Development and Claymation.

Along side the conference will be an exhibition at Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea.

http://www.sand.org.uk/

London Film Festival

The London Film Festival Started today and has a promising line up of animation including some distinctly grown up films such as "Persepolis" directed by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Parronaud. Persepolis has been nominated for the Sutherland Trophy for the Most origional and imaginative first feature. Also showing is "Lucidi Folli" an erotic black and white animation which is Ursula Ferrara's debut film from 1986. I'm glad that the festival has chosen to recognise animation as something more than films for kids. Ursula's 1999 film "Five Rooms" is also showing.

Here's the details of all the animated films on during the festival:

Animated Shorts for Younger Audiences
Sat 27 Oct 16:00, NFT2

The Bee Movie (USA 2007)
A gala special screening.
Sun 28 Oct 15:30, Odeon West End 2

Five Rooms (Italy 1999) and We Want Roses Too (Italy-Switzerland 2007)
Fri 19 Oct 14:00, NFT3
or
Sat 20 Oct 15:45, NFT2

Lucidi Folli (Italy 1986)
Mon 22 Oct 18:30, Odeon West End 2
or
Tue 23 Oct 16:00, Odeon West End 1

Max & Co (Switzerland-Belgium-France-UK 2007)
Sat 20 Oct 14:00, NFT3

Persepolis (France 2007)
Mon 29 Oct 21:00, Odeon West End 1
or
Wed 31 Oct 15:00, Odeon West End 2

International Animation Panorama
Sat 20 Oct 13:45, NFT2
or
Mon 22 Oct 14:00, NFT3

The Thread of Life (Syria 2006)
Sat 20 Oct 19:30, BFI Southbank Studio
or
Mon 22 Oct 13:45, NFT2

Vexille (Japan 2007)
Sat 20 Oct 23:30, Odeon West End 1
or
Sun 21 Oct 16:15, ICA Cinema

Yobi, the Five-Tailed Fox
Sat 20 Oct 15:30, Odeon West End 1
or
Tue 23 Oct 12:00, NFT2