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Interview with festival director Chris Robinson

Questions: Thomas Renoldner

Thomas Renoldner: "A terrible accident happened to the OTTAWA office. I heard, that it burned down and that a lot of material was destroyed. How serious is the situation for this year's edition of the Ottawa Animation Festival? "

Chris Robinson: "Not very serious at all. Fortunately, festival organization is a very flexible environment. Of course, we were lucky to salvage many files, including our major mailing list, which made things easier. If it had happened one month later, it would have been a disaster as many of the films for the festival would have been in the office. In the end, it took about a week to really get started again. I must say that my staff was outstanding. There were many late days and weekends needed to make sure that everything was on track again. Everyone was patient and understanding. I would never say that the fire was a good thing, but because we had insurance we were able to purchase better computers so we had no y2k problem now! My concern is more long term. Everyday we realize one more thing that we have lost. Many catalogues, animation cels, videos, films etc...have all been lost or seriously damaged. Film entry databases have been destroyed...and we are crammed inside a very small office. Another good thing is that everyone is calm as the festival approaches. We've handled a fire, so the festival is no big deal right now."

Thomas Renoldner: "Are there any important informations connected with that accident, that you want to give to the animation community?"

Chris Robinson: "Well..we realize how important it is to maintain communcation with entrants and while we generally are quite reliable, this year we have not been able to contact all entrants. I feel quite bad about this, but all of the letters of notification were burned and we had no time to re-do them (remember we also had to make new envelopes and letterhead etc...), so in the end we concentrated on the accepted entrants. I do hope that people will understand that we were not just ignoring them."

Thomas Renoldner: "Will the OTTAWA'99 edition be a Student Animation Festival Ottawa (SAFO)?"

Chris Robinson: "Yes, but student is misleading so we have been downplaying the use of that word. I prefer to think of Ottawa 99 as the Ottawa International Animation Festival presents SAFO 99. What does SAFO mean? I don't know. It's a bit of a joke really. Anyway....I see SAFO as an emerging animator's festival. We are showing a number of first films by people who have never been 'students' or have completed their studies. In a way, SAFO 99 has a lot of in common with Fantoche."

Thomas Renoldner: "Excuse me, but when I enter your homepage, then I find the information about selected films. They will be presented in five categories: CATEGORY A (High School/Secondary level) CATEGORY B (Undergraduate/First year films) CATEGORY C (Graduate Films) CATEGORY D (First films: Professional or otherwise) CATEGORY E (Films by Children under 12) This truly looks like a perfect "student" or "newcomers" festival to me, and I don't see what should be wrong with that. On the opposite side, I highly appreciate, when a festival tries to be different, and to have the competiton focused on students or first films. This is really unique worldwide. So why 'downplay' it?"

Chris Robinson: "If I seem like I'm downplaying the student aspect, its more for the general public than any other reason. People too often associate the term student with unprofessional and shit. I think student films are boundless, courageous, and wonderfully naive. They are not entraped by borders yet. Nevertheless....a student festival is a hard sell and I prefer, and its justified by the presence of the first film category, to play the emerging angle as a selling point. Also, at this point we are considering making Ottawa annual and simply incorporating SAFO into the larger festival....but I don't know at this point because honestly I feel a closeness to SAFO. It was a festival that I created and I really enjoy the intimacy of SAFO and the fact that you can clearly see it helping young animators. However, SAFO is difficult to sell to the public and the studios and at the end of the day we need money to organize the festival."

Thomas Renoldner: "For the OTTAWA 1998 festival you published a "mandate". I found it very important, that a festival director publishes his basic theoretical concept before the festival, saying more than just 'the festival wants to show the best films of the world'. Public theoretical discourse does not seem to be the real strength of the current animation festivals. The main message of that mandate was as far as I understood, that in the competition program you wish to reach a balance between "art" and "industry". At our last personal meeting at Annecy'98 you told me, that some (or a lot of) people criticised the OTTAWA 98 festival for being too "artistic", and that you would understand that as a nice compliment. Has your position now changed to a more radical artistic position, like "Fantoche", about which the animator Nina Paley from San Francisco wrote in her comment for ASIFA.NET: 'And the competition had NO COMMERCIALS. In fact, I don't think a single commercial was screened in any of the programs. This alone makes Fantoche a classy festival.' "

Chris Robinson: "First of all, I agree that a festival director must establish some sort of mandate. A festival should reflect the personality, to a degree!, of its director; otherwise it becomes a bland, faceless festival. I like to think that in many ways Ottawa reflects me...just as Ottawa 88 or 90 reflected Frank Taylor. I've seen a number of festivals being led blindly like the director is rolling dice. Generally, these festivals are unsuccessful and quite unorganized. I don't want to take a more radical position like Fantoche. Despite my words about the importance of a strong mandate, you have to remember (sometimes I have to remember!) that this is not my festival. I do not own the Ottawa festival. The Ottawa festival, as I've also said before, is and should be a reflection of the animation community. In North America, we have a very diverse animation community which is comprised of multinational animation studios and independent animators. I feel it is my duty to address both their needs to some degree. If Ottawa becomes too radical, the audience will not come anymore. If they do not come, what is the point of the festival. I prefer a more democratic means of subverting our audience, hence the balance. We have workshops and a small market that is aimed at industry folks, but primarily I am very strict about the screenings. But that does not mean that I reject all things commercial. Last year we premiered the animated feature Antz. This allowed us to attract a larger portion of the Ottawa public (this is an important difference between European and North American festivals; not to say that North American audiences are dumber, because they are not, it's more a matter of exposure. European audiences are more open to 'art' animation because they have had better opportunities to see it. This cannot be said in North America where are television, movies and videos are dominated by dumbing children's product with shitty designs and even crappier 'storylines'. So...my point is that in order to attract a larger public, we must find something more inviting than Estonian animation to get them to come to the festival. However, it is my hope that once they are here, they might stay and see more films and discover another side to animation.) and it afforded us the opportunity to bring in a huge Estonian programme, in addition to a number of foreign programmes. Sure...only 100 people, at the best times, showed up for the Estonian programme, but we did and will continue to show fine work like this because we owe it to our audiences to introduce them to interesting provocative animation. Showing things like Antz allows us to cover the box office loss of Estonian animation. The point I'm trying to make is that I cannot and actually do not want to be as supposedly radical as Fantoche. Being overly radical in Ottawa would smell of elitism and alienate audiences, and what purpose does that serve? The whole point is to introduce audiences to the 'art of animation', but it must be done a democratic fashion. How do you achieve that? I don't have the answer. I do try to mix up our selection committees and juries with art and industry types and I try to balance 'radical' programming with more accessible programming. Finding this balance is quite difficult and one can never achieve perfection. Someone will always complain. But you have to try and speak to a wide variety of needs. The french sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu has discussed the notion of taste quite extensively in his book, Distinction. He argues that taste creates/maintains social differences. Good or bad taste has been defined by those with sufficient cultural and economic capital. (Of course to understand bloody Bourdieu you need sufficient amounts of cultural capital!). Anyway, his arguments serve as a motivation to me to bridge the social gap to some degree. In the end I will always favour works that I perceive to be challenging, provocative and innovative, but that is not a reason not to show works that our funny, sentimental, and escapist. Both are legitimate modes of expression and both should be given the same respect...to some degree!

Thomas Renoldner: "Now let's discuss the so-called 'festival alliance' between Ottawa, Holland Animation Festival and Fantoche, which has been promoted during the last two years. If I look at the three festivals' main programs, the competitive section, I could simplistically say that Fantoche concentrates on a radical artistic position, Ottawa intends to keep a balance between art and industry and Holland offers a competiton for commercial animation. What are the points of cooperation for three festivals with such different conceptions?"

Chris Robinson: "Holland is actually on the verge, I believe, of changing their structure, but I can't confirm that. You've answered the question in your final line: 'cooperation' is the the point of the alliance. I've used the quote over and over and over, but for me the alliance means 'communication' and 'cooperation'. We have no intention of influencing the individuality of each other's festivals. I admire what each festival does, but I like to do things a little differently. At the same time, Otto [Alder, on of four festival directors of Fantoche Festival] and Gerben [Schermer, festival director or Holland Festival] would never do some things that I do in Ottawa (eg. workshops, market, picnic). Also, I should mention that Brisbane and Anima Mundi are the latest festivals to join to alliance. Here's a great example of the alliance in action: about 15 films in fantoche were screening in SAFO this year. We arranged to for me to bring all of these titles with to Ottawa directly. This saved money, time, and confusion. Back to your question: retrospective programmes are probably the most important part. We all shared the Third Eye exhibition last year; the Estonian programme went to Brisbane and Brazil; a Rene Jodoin programme will likely travel to at least Holland and Brazil next year after premiering in Ottawa.

Thomas Renoldner: "You have been criticising ASIFA, and I may say to some extent justifiably, with the legendary expression of being an 'old boys club'. You know, that in my private communication with some people, I used the term 'young boys club', when I heard about your 'alliance'. (We don't count the number of women in both clubs. You know, that ASIFA also has some women in important positions, and I know, that e.g. Suzanne Buchan, one of the Fantoche directors, definitely is a very important person for the performance of the festival.)"

Chris Robinson: "Hey....I'm the only young boy! Otto and Gerben are bloody middle aged. You're right there is a tendency with the alliance to reflect a 'younger' attitude, but I think that is misleading. Instead, I see the Alliance has reflecting perhaps a more liberal attitude towards animation."

Thomas Renoldner: "Okay, but the essence of my provocative term 'young boys club' is, that I feel a bit uneasy, when I watch a process, which also seems to split festivals into black and white, old and young, conservative and innovative. What would you say about such an apprehension?"

Chris Robinson: "Despite all our rhetoric and what not, the alliance's aims are modest. We just want to show animators etc....that festivals do not need to compete with each other and that actually by cooperating we make our lives easier and more importantly the lives of animators easier."

Thomas Renoldner: "Fine. Just before I interrupted you, when you were talking about the alliance's 'liberal attitude' ":

Chris Robinson: In Annecy, they choose "When The Day Breaks", a good film, because it touched their hearts. I am not interested personally in films that touch my heart, I don't mind them, but for me a Grand Prix should go to films that touch your head. I like to think that the Grand Prix winners in Ottawa since I've been director do just that (The Bird in The Window, We Lived in Grass, The Night of the Carrots). It was amazing in Annecy..."Night of the Carrots" [Priit Pärn] was almost like a narrative film in Ottawa, but in Annecy it came off as a very experimental. There is a scarier tendency with the former ASIFA festivals, among others, to award the same old films and directors. The NFB always wins in away because of their reputation more than anything else. This is not to take anything away from When The Day Breaks of How Angels Get Their Wings, both are fine films, in fact, they are the best films that NFB has produced in a while. However, I associated this 'old boys club' with the tendency to award the past. Of course....one could easily come back to me and say that Priit Pärn is an old boy and the Night of the Carrots is not his best film. It's never easy."

Thomas Renoldner: "Well, I would like to pick up just one aspect of what you said here. I agree with you, that most major animation festivals definitely have the tendency to give the awards to "the past", as you said. For example I think, that Hiroshima really is a progressive festival and did show already for a long time a lot of films of the kind you would find now at e.g. Fantoche, Ottawa or -not to forget- Zagreb. But in Hiroshima, like in many main festivals, most prizes go to the old-fashioned films. It was exactly that conservative prize- giving policy of many international animation festivals, that motivated me to become more active within ASIFA. (Sometimes there are ASIFA Board members on the juries, who are responsible for those kinds of decisions.) On the other hand it seems to me that things are actually changing a bit, maybe thanks to you or your festival alliance, or thanks to a lot of people, who keep the discussion going. Terms like "avant-garde" or "innovation" become more and more attractive for all animation festivals. It seems that festivals slowly realise, that the "old style" is getting more and more boring for the younger generation. Even Tiziana Loschi, Managing Director of CICA (Annecy), says that Annecy would be the place to show the "avant-garde works, that could hardly be seen elsewhere". We don't discuss here if she is right in her statement, but to make it, to use the word "avant-garde", seems significant for a change of thinking. Okay, I would say, that our communication has become rather long already. Do you want to make a final statement?"

Chris Robinson: "I agree with you. Whether its the alliance or my harsh comments from 1997 about ASIFA and the festivals, who knows, who cares; the fact is that things do seem to be changing and the channels of communication are arguably more open than they have been in many years. Actually, for me, I think the fire actually caused this as many festivals immediately came to our aid with words of support and offers of aid. That was a wonderful moment for me and it showed that beneath all the bullshit, there are many good hearts out there."

Thomas Renoldner: "I thank you heartly for that interview. The festival dates of OTTAWA'99 are October 21 - 24 1999. I wish the festival many guests and success."

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