Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Word is that Salma Hayek is trying to turn Kahlil Gibran‘s The Prophet into an animated feature. It would have many directors. At the moment, these have been contacted: Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville), John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Chris Landreth (Oscar-winning short Ryan), Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog and Your Face) and Kunio Kato (Oscar winning short The House of Little Cubes).

The film should be an interesting one, once they get into production. Can you imagine the blend of styles, going from Nina Paley to Chris Landreth to Bill Plympton to Sylvain Chomet? I’ll buy my tickets now. All they have to do is raise the money.

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- Carnegie Hall, in Zankel Hall, will screen two shorts by Hayao Miyazaki March 26th. There will be two screenings on March 26, the first at 6:30 PM and the second at 8:30 PM. Tickets are available now for $15 here.

The films, House Hunting (2006, 12 mins) and Mon Mon the Water Spider (2006, 15 mins) will have their U.S. Premieres that night. Neither of them, written and directed by Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, has ever been seen outside of Japan. They were produced for the Ghibli Museum, in Japan.

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A Cat in Paris will premiere in NY at the NY International Children’s Film Festival this weekend. Today at 6 m at Symphony Space and tomorrow at 11:15am at the IFC theater. The film is a 2D animated feature from France, directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli.

A Cat in Paris is a 2D hand-drawn caper film, set in the shadowed alleyways of Paris.

Date Theater Buy Tickets
Sat Mar 5 SYMPHONY SPACE 6:00
Sun Mar 13 IFC CENTER 11:15

Here’s the link to the Facebook page for this film. (It’s in French.)
Here’s Cartoon Brew‘s note about their distribution through G-Kids in the U.S.

And here’s a clip to give you a sense of the style. (The clip is in French.)

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-ASIFA-East has a good interview on their website: Biljana Labovic interviewed by Dayna Gonzalez.

Biljana has become a mainstay on the NY front. She was a Producer on Bill Plympton’s feature, Idiots and Angels. She started work with Bill as an intern and ended up as his producer. In this interview talks about her work with Bill Plympton (from 1999-2010) on his many shorts and features.

She also is about to work on Dash Shaw‘s feature, The Ruined Cast. This film is about to go into pre-production in Brooklyn with John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole) as one of its Producers.
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- In his blog, the New Savannah, Bill Benzon wraps up his commentary on Robert Clampett‘s short Porky In Wackyland.

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The Arludik Gallery has a show of art from The Illusionist. If you visit on line, you can see some of the animation drawings from the film, and the prices aren’t horrible.

One of the good things about 2d animation is that there actually is ARTWORK that you can purchase. I’d recently gotten a notice that Dreamworks is selling prints of some of the frame grabs from Megamind. Don’t worry if I don’t show up soon. The film was not good and the artwork is not art; it’s just work. For $250 you can buy a Giclee!

Here are some of The Illusionist art for sale:

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