Time to evaluation: what was AniFest 2012 like?
AniFest is over and the time has come to bilance and summarize. What have we experienced, who have we met, how many films have we screened? Which film heroes met in Teplice and what has the jury to say about it? Read…
Barry Purves at the closing ceremony
During the closing ceremony, 15 prizes were handed over to the authors. For the first time in the history of AniFest, Grand Prix went to a student film. Agnes Patron, author of the awarded film „Widow Caillou“ sent a virtual greeting to the audience during the ceremony. „It’s the firts prize for this film and I am happy and honoured that it comes from AniFest“ said the excited French student in her short video. Three prizes went to „locals“: in the short film category, main prize went to Rudolf Šmíd for the original animated documentary „Chronicle of Oldřich S.“ In the TV series category, jury awarded the newest episode from the legendary series „Pat and Mat in the country“. And the last Czech award is for Jan Šrámek and Veronika Vlková for „Bubi“, the first winner in the category of non-narative and experimental films ever. Juror Michal Žabka says, that he was „less depressed than last year when watching the competition films“. There were even a few positive things, he says… Well, we are really glad that you survived your role of a juror without a psychical trauma, Michal ! (By the way, Michal and his lovely and talented wife Aneta are planning to make a good old bloody and
AniFest Grand Prix: La veuve Caillou
scarry animated horror for their upcoming baby…). Pedro Serrazina appreciated the opportunity to watch so many different films from so many authors: „As a film-maker, I would say that it’s crucial for me to see how other people work. And, it’s my first visit here, the place is lovely…in the end, it’s a combination of all that, wonderful films, discussions with people that you like and respect…thank you for that!“
Besides the competition programme, AniFest also offered couple of Czech premieres: „The Painting“ by Jean-Francois Laguionie was screened for the first time, while „Tales of the Night“ by Michel Ocelot, one of our special guests this year, had its third release in Czech Republic (after the premiere at Karlovy Vary IFF and the screening in French Institute in Prague). The festival was opened by the official release of „The Pirates! Band of Misfits“ by Aardman studios. And of course, countless number of short films that are unfortunately being disregarded also in the long-term perspective in Czech distribution…
Not only about the problems of our distribution net were the discussions led during the 2nd edition of Visegrad Exchange Forum. Round-table debates, pitching of projects of animated shorts and the competition of school films from Visegrad countries were attended by more than 140 professionals from Eastern and Central Europe.
And a few numbers to conclude:
- 450 animation and film professionals visited Teplice
150 students from Czech film schools visited the specialized lectures- 60 students from foreign film schools joined their Czech fellows
- 40 Czech and 10 foreign journalists came to describe the atmosphere and review the films
Together 20 000 visitors attended the festival.
- 1600 films submitted
- 231 selected for the competition
- 254 films in the accompanying programme
= together 485 films from 69 countries were screened.
- 27 specialized lectures and presentations
- 3 exhibitions attended by 4 000 visitors
Saturday programme tips
The weather is just perfect to sit on a bench in the park and enjoying the sun, however here are few tips which may change your mind…
Honorary president’s programme: Barry Purves (Culture House – Cinema Květen, 9:30 p.m.)
British animator, director, designer, theorist and teacher is one of the few contemporary authors, whose works can stand a comparison to Jiří Trnka’s films. Barry will screen a selection of his films and talk about his inspirational sources.
Juror’s presentation: Sulafa Hijazi (Culture House – Social Club, 6:30, p.m.)
Syrian animator and author of a couple internationally awarded films is maybe the first female Arabic juror at European animation festival. She will talk about the Arab identity in animation and about the specifics of this still uknown production.
Feature films competition: Letter To Momo, Japan, 2011, dir. Hiroyuki Okiura (Culture House – Estrada Hall, 4:00 p.m.)
The brand new anime feature by a classic of the genre tells a story of Momo, who’s moving from Tokyo to a distant island after the death of her father. Momo tries to figure out the meaning of the letter her father left her and meanwhile, strange things are happening at the island…
Feature films competition: Dead But Not Buried, UK 2011, dir. Phil Mulloy (Culture House – Estrada Hall)
This film is part 2 of the Christies trilogy (special mention at last year’s AniFest for „Goodbye Mister Christie“). Why has Mr Christie’s body been stolen? Who stole it? A Japanese industrialist called Mr. Yakamoto is sure that Mr. Christie holds the secret of eternal life and thus is determined to bring him back to life. Meanwhile, a bunch of people claiming to be Mr. Christie’s relatives are on a quest to possess Mr. Christie’s Tesco sticker collection. Dear Mrs. Christie, on the other hand, seeks her husband’s body with perseverance and before they know it, they all end up in Iceland….another poignant and minimalistic social critique.
Non-narative/experimental animation – competition films (Culture House – Cinema Květen, 10:00 p.m.)
Brand new competition category will present the best of experimental films by contemporary authors. An unique opportunity to see experimental animation at a big screen, a real delicatesse for connoisseurs.
British puppet at AniFest – Paul Wells, Barry Purves, Ian Mackinnon and The Pirates!
Great Britain is lately being considered as a sort of super-power when it comes to stop-motion, so it’s not surprising that we will pay a lot attention to this country in our special puppet programme.
It is our pleasure (and honour) to present this year’s honorary president Barry Purves, one of the most outstanding personalities of British puppet animation, animator, director, scriptwriter, who dedicated his talent to theatre as well as to the art of animation films. Barry started in theatre, occassionaly also as actor in theatres all around Britain. He then started with animation, but it took him seven years to become an independent animator. His films, which are inspired by opera, balet and theatre scenography, were awarded with more than 60 international prizes including an Oscar nomination. He’s also a theorist and author of the book Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance. AniFest will bring a retrospective of Barry’s films, followed by a lecture. At the meeting with Giannalberto Bendazzi, he will talk about the new books on animation together with Ülo Pikkov and Paul Wells.
Barry Purves might be the most outstanding representative of the contemporary British puppet animation, but he’s definitely not the only one. A very detailed and thoughtfully curated selection of British stop-motion production is being prepared specially for AniFest by Paul Wells, famous teacher and theorist. In three programmes, Paul will present you the most important milestones of British puppet, including such films like „The Sandman“ (1991, dir. Paul Berry) or „Peter and The Wolf“ (2006, Academy Award for Suzie Templeton). The programme will be completed with the Czech release of the latest Aardman feature „The Pirates! Band of Misfits“ (hopefully with personal presence of its authors).
„Sandman“ is also an example of the production of the studio Mackinnon&Saunders. Famous for animated films for public of all ages, from „Bob the Builder“ to „Fantastic Mr Fox“ and Tim Burton’s „Corpse Bride“, the studio will present its unique know-how in Teplice. Ian Mackinnon will be accompanied by Viktor, the betrothed of the above mentioned Tim Burton’s heroine.
THE MAGIC OF FILM PUPPET
Puppet animation, animation of objects, clay animation and other variations from the extensive spectre of stop-motion animation techniques – every each one of them will be the focus of this year’s AniFest. We will look at the magic of film puppet from authorial, technical as well as production point of view.
An unforgettable personality of this animation field is Jiří Trnka
– universal artist, who would have celebrated 100.anniversary this year. We will screen his film from original 35 mm copies, the selection of them curated by the historian Michaela Mertová from Czech National Film Archive and accompanied by various lector’s presentations. An exhibition in the Teplice museum will focus on the process of creating of Trnka’s films and their puppet protagonists.
In the contemporary puppet production, one country excells recently – United Kingdom. AniFest thus invited famous historian and theorist Paul Wells and asked him to prepare a special programme dedicated to British stop-motion animation. His selection will be divided into three thematical units mapping the developement of British stop-motion animation from 1908 till today. The actual and contemporary face of British animation will be presented by the expected feature film from the Aardman studios.
An unique part of this year’s puppet AniFest and British animation profile will be the double-programme of the honorary president Barry Purves (Screenplay, Achilles, Hamilton Mattress). 
A selection of his author puppet films will be accompanied by a lecture on his inspiration sources and Purves will also reveal the „backstage“ of his films by showing some very rare shots documenting the creation of his work.
Also other festival guests will give lectures on the broad possibilities of puppets, for example Will Vinton (Academy Award for „Closed Mondays“), who reached perfection in clay animation and thus created his patented technique of clay-motion. Contemporary Czech puppet will be presented by director and designer Michal Žabka (Mrs. G). Špela Čadež, our Slovenian juror (Lovesick) will also talk about her non-traditionally designed puppets.
Not only puppet films but also their designers and developers will be present at AniFest. Representatives of world famous studios promised to come: Polish SE-MA-FOR (where films of such authors like brothers Quay, Suzie Templeton or Marek Skrobecki are produced), British MacKinnon & Saunders, creators of Tim Buton’s, Barry Purves‘ or Wes Anderson’s puppets, Laika studio, where Selick’s Coraline was born and French company Sophie Roze, responsible for succesfull Joska’s Snails.
AniFest 2012 jury and first programme hints…
Will Vinton – The Great Cognito (1982)
New year has come and the ongoing preparations for AniFest 2012 are getting more and more interesting, so here are some backstage news we wanted to share…first of all, the jury is now complete! And we are honoured to announce that short and feature films will be judged by Will Vinton (US), Igor Kovalyov (Ukraine), Michal Žabka (CZ), Špela Čadež (Slovenia) and Pedro Serrazina (Portugal). The jurors for animated commercials, music-videos, TV and students films are: Ülo Pikkov (Estonia), Sulafa Hijazi (Syria) and Andrew Kavanagh (Ireland). And we are more than pleased to announce also the honorary president of this year’s festival – this task was kindly accepted by famous writer, director and animator Barry Purves (UK). You can find more info about the jury in the About festival section.
And least but not last, when there’s new category, there’s also new jury – non-narrative and experimental films will be judged by Ivana Laučíková (SK), Martin Mazanec (CZ) and Martin Kaňuch (SK).
Year 2012 is a year of film puppet, because in February we will celebrate the centennary of one of the biggest puppet magicians Jiří Trnka. This year’s AniFest will thus bring for example a retrospective of Trnka’s films curated by Michaela Mertová from the National Film Archive, an exposition of scripts, puppets and sketches from the archives of Jiří Trnka descendants or a retrospective of Japanese director and Trnka’s pupil Kihachiro Kawamoto and another independent Japanese animator who is closely connected to Czech enviroment, Nobuhiro Aihara.
Puppets and puppet animation will be the focus of this year’s festival and we will look at the phenomenon of film puppet from every possible angle. Paul Wells is preparing a large retrospective of British stop-motion animation and some of the jurors will also talk about puppets in their programmes (Michal Žabka, Will Vinton, Špela Čadež as well as Barry Purves).
Our Baltic mission is coming to its end this year – juror’s presentation of Ülo Pikkov will thus accompany the retrospective of Estonian animation, the last one left after we’ve been to Lithuania in 2010 and in Latvia last year with Vladimír Leschiov.
Author of this year’s visual and director of the festival spot is designer, animator and a student at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts Matyáš Trnka – you can get acquainted with his work for example at the DVD „From Year Zero“ released by AniFest last year, where his short abstract film Absurp from 2009 was included. For the festival graphic materials, he uses an unusual technique of transluminated spirit paints and as a main component he chose the skeleton of a film puppet – the most important element, which however usually remains hidden to the viewer.
Magic of puppet
Hundred years has gone since the artist, who evokes magic with the variety, significance and style of his work, was born in Pilsen…but, besides the magical influence he had on the developement of film puppet, the greatest amount of magic is in the enlivened material. Up untill our time, you can find this magic only at a few places…
Great Britain and its puppet magic: Barry Purves, Suzie Templeton, Aardman Animations…no one else can explain this better than Paul Wells (and he´s already used to celebrate Czech masters of animation with us, remember AniFest 2010?)
During our magical journey, we´re going further and further north through the Baltic region and saying hi to Antanas Janauskas, Nijolé Valadkevičiuté, Vladimir Leschiov, Signe Baumane and all other friend we met while traveling there…and no, we´re not heading to Russia. The closer we are, the more we regret that our Baltic mission is about to end this year.
HONORARY PRESIDENT
Barry Purves
One of the most important british puppet animators. Barry’s early career was in stage management as well as some time as an actor, working in many theatres around the UK. Barry’s films have won over sixty major international awards, including Grand Prix, Best Director, Best Film, and OSCAR and BAFTA nominations. He has realised for example films Next (1989), Rigoletto (1993) nebo Achilles (1995).
His book Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance was published in 2008 by Focal Press and six of his films with commentaries and interviews were issued on DVD by Potemkin in 2008 as Barry Purves: His Intimate Lives. His second book Stop-motion was published in 2010 by AVA Publishing.
Please find his coplete filmography as well as other informations at www.barrypurves.com
