Press release from Go2Girl
Get ready to witness the wonders of the human imagination at its absolute finest, as the 10th edition of the Melbourne International Animation Festival, featuring the latest and best animation from around the world rolls into town for 9 days from the 19-27 June, 2010 at ACMI!
The Melbourne International Animation Festival celebrates its 10 year anniversary this year, and features over four hundred films taken from over 2000 entries, thirty plus unique programs and over thirty countries represented!
This is your only opportunity in Australia to see such a comprehensive line-up of the most current animated short films in competition, along with specially curated programs that highlight recent productions and absolute gems from the past.
Whether side splittingly hilarious, employing a documentary style, abstract or gothic inspired, these films range from the beautifully hand drawn and painted, to Flash gems, high end computer wizardry and stop motion puppets, defying the notion that computer generated animation is what defines contemporary animated filmmaking.
Besides the regular avalanche of animated goodies MIAF 2010 will also take a look back over the last 10 years: which has seen the festival go from strength to strength with over 12,000 entries, over 3500 films screened and the crème de la crème of the world’s animators as special guests. Some of these retrospective programs include 10 Years of International Highlights,10 Years of Australian Highlight, 10 Years of Late Night Bizarre as well as much more!
In addition to the spectacular line-up of films, the festival will also feature international guests, and this years’ award winning, and thought provoking special guest is Frenchman Edouard Salier whose best works Flesh and Empire have been shown and appreciated around the world winning numerous awards from Miami to Madrid from Seoul to Sundance. In addition, he has directed award winning commercials for Nike, Coke, the World Cup and Smirnoff as well as music videos for Air, Massive Attack and other international recording artists. His command of digital animation technologies is among the most assured of anybody working in the field, and his work just keeps getting better and better – his latest film Four is an immense and challenging achievement. We could have played it last year but we knew we had to hold it until we had the man himself here to introduce it.
The technique focus for MIAF 20210 is “Scratch” film, or “direct to film” which is one of the most painstaking ways to produce animation by scratching directly onto film stock, which requires a steady hand and a mystical grasp of ‘visual rhythm.’ One of the world’s finest proponents of this technique is Canadian Steve Woloshen who will introduce the program, which will also feature a retrospective of his finest works as well as a collection of historical classics.
MIAF aims to challenge and inspire audiences with thematic, aesthetic and technical diversity from award winners, outstanding industry veterans and those wonderful newcomers who are exploring their talent on screen for the very first time.
OTHER FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
Autour de Minuit Showcase:
Autour de Minuit is one of the most interesting animation and production houses in Europe. Their modest, cramped Parisian office is home to an eclectic stable of animators including MIAF guest Edouard Salier, Nieto and H5. On top of this, Autour de Minuit acts as a distribution hub for a stunning roster of European animators. From this treasure trove MIAF has sourced some of our favourite films over the years as well as a sneak preview of some works in progress. They also produced this year’s Academy Award winning film “Logorama” which will show in this program and also in competition
The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat
In its time, Felix the Cat was easily the world’s most famous animated cartoon. Our research into New York animation reminded us just how big a deal (and how much fun) Felix was. The best Felix cartoons depicted a world in which nothing was ever quite as it seemed. Everything had an edge and Felix straddled the excesses of the swinging jazz era and the innocence of cinematic cartoons with consummate ease. Loved for more than 75 years, Felix the Cat is a classic in the truest sense of the word and we’ve got a feast of films that date back to the 1920’s which come to us from a private collection discovered in the UK.
Best of the Next: International Student Animation Festival
A Festival within a Festival: four different programs featuring up to 100 of the finest rule breaking animated mayhem, tears and laughter from the next generation.
International Competitive Programs
The back-bone of the MIAF program – the very best of more than 2,000 entries from all over the world carefully assembled into ten unique programs. The ultimate showcase for this stunning art form.
The Australian Panorama Showcase
Showcasing the best in Australian animation is incredibly important to MIAF who love giving local animators the ‘home ground advantage’ by showing local audiences what their community of animators is up to.
10 Years of MIAF Highlights
Four (International, Australian Late night Bizarre & Student) screenings will review some of the hits, misses and should-a-beens from the past 10 years so we can relive some of the highlights and most talked about films that are all part and parcel of staging an annual animation festival.
Late Night Bizarre
Crazed, weird, extreme or just impossible to explain plots – a boggling compendium of the wildest animated ideas horse whipped up to warp speed and teleported back from parallel universes!
Animation for Kids
A program of extra-special films selected for our most extra-special audience – plus whichever grown-ups they want to bring along. Best suited for ages 4-7 years, these films bring the wonder of animation onto the big screen. They’re entertaining, thought provoking, colourful and enchanting – without a toy ad in sight and priced to be super family friendly!
SIGGRAPH wrap up
SIGGRAPH is without doubt one of the most important gathering points for the international digerati. Whether it is short films, ads, software demo reels, trailers or music videos, SIGGRAPH exists to bring the finest digital animators and their work together. This year, we bring the very best works from SIGGRAPH Asia and the ‘mainland’ USA SIGGRAPH (held in New Orleans) to the big screen.
& SO MUCH MORE!!!
Visit www.miaf.net
Melbourne International Animation Festival, 19-27 June 2010
ACMI Cinemas, Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Federation Square, Flinders Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Bookings: ACMI Box Office 03 8663 2583
Festival Pass + FREE Festival Catalogue: Full $90, Conc. $$80
Mini Passes (any 6 sessions): Full $54, Conc. $48
Session Ticket: Full $$15, Conc. $$12
Kids, Best Of Next & Panorama programs: $5
Contact: info@miaf.net