Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Per Variety:
Luis Cook’s The Pearce Sisters won Europe’s Cartoon d’Or at the 18th Cartoon Forum, which wrapped Saturday in Girona, north of Barcelona. This prize is awarded by the European Association of Animation Film for best European short film of the year. The competition is restricted to winners from one of Cartoon’s 10 partner festivals.

Produced by Aardman Animation, Sisters turns on a couple of old spinsters living a despondent existence on a remote strip of coast. One day, the sea washes up a half drowned and handsome man, whom they try to revive and then captivate.

The other four finalists from 27 candidates were: Tomek Ducki’s Life Line from Hungary, Suzie Templeton’s Peter & the Wolf from the U.K., Ami Lindholm’s The Irresistible Smile from Finland, and Daniel Gray and Tom Brown’s t.o.m,” again from the U.K.

- Miyazaki on the big screen. Wednesday, Sept. 26th, for one night only, Miyazaki’s feature, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, will be screened in theaters across the country. This is part of a program called the Anime Bento movie series. The film will be screened in the dubbed version, which is no doubt a disappointment to anime purists. However, it is a rare chance for fans to see a Miyazaki film on the big screen.

Thursday, Sept. 27th, they’re screening Karas: the Prophecy, which is not a Miyazaki film; it was directed by Akira Takata.

To locate the theater nearest you go here.

The Ottawa Animation Festival ended yesterday and sounds as though it were a good one. I’m sorry I missed it. There were a number of screenings that sounded very attractive to me.

Congratulations to these and all other winners:
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Persepolis [2007] Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, France

BEST INDEPENDENT SHORT ANIMATION
Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor [2007] Koji Yamamura, Japan

INDEPENDENT SHORT ANIMATION COMPETITION
Narrative Short Animation under 35 minutes: Madame Tutli-Putli [2007] Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, National Film Board of Canada, Canada

BEST COMMISSIONED ANIMATION
Golden Age [2007] Aaron Augenblick, Augenblick Studios, USA

Thanks to Frames Per Second for posting all of the award winners. One wonders why most festivals are always the last to announce their own award winners on line.

Methinks some of these may show up again at Oscar time.

And speaking of Alvin & the Chipmunks, if you haven’t seen the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive site’s go there. They’ve posted the storyboard for the pilot for this tv show (the original by Format Films, not the unattractive offspring). You can’t do better than to study a successful board by Leo Salkin.

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