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    Actual up-date   :   4th November 2002 16th December 2002, 3rd February 2003   :   Next up-dates  


  News from ASIFA / on ASIFA.NET
  Open ASIFA Meeting in Portugal:   at CINANIMA '02 (4.-10. Nov.)
  Open ASIFA Meeting at Ottawa '02   Meeting Report
  ASIFA Euskadi (Spain)   Press Conference - San Sebastian (25th Sept.)
  The Norman McLaren Heritage Award     for Nicole Salomon
  International Animation Day (28th Oct.)   Celebrations in France (organised by AFCA)
  International Animation Day   Celebrations in Portugal (Casa da Animacao)  
  International Animation Day   Celebrations in India, Israel, and elsewhere...  
  3rd Int. Children Animation Workshop   at VRANJE 2002 (Yugoslavia)  
  In Memoriam: Aleksandar Marks (1922-2002)   Great Animation Artist from Croatia died  
  Festival Reports
  Ottawa 2002 Festival Report   ...on ASIFA.NET/RADIO  
  Upcoming animation festivals   Festival Dates and URLs  




  Open ASIFA Meeting at the Cinanima 2002 Int. Animation Festival
After the Open ASIFA Meetings during the year 2002 (being held at the animation festivals in Stuttgart, Zagreb, Ottawa)
ASIFA invites again all members and friends of ASIFA to come to our

OPEN ASIFA MEETING
at CINANIMA 2002
Saturday, 9th November, 9.30 a.m.

The main aims of the Open ASIFA Meetings are:
  • to give information about our organisation
  • to get feedback and critic from ASIFA Members and friends
  • to talk about future projects of ASIFA

    Main topics on the agenda for the Cinanima Meeting is the
    Proposal for a new organisational structure of ASIFA (presented by ASIFA president Thomas Renoldner)

    In preparation of the Open ASIFA Meeting some representatives from European ASIFA Groups (Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, etc. etc.) will meet for intensive talks.
    The Cinanima Festival - a true ASIFA Partner Festival - has been very supportive to prepare all these meetings. Many ASIFA group representatives have been invited by the festival (accomodation, meals and festival pass) - in the name of ASIFA I wish to express my gratitude. (Thomas Renoldner)
    •    You will find the proposal / discussion board in the [ COMMUNICATION ZONE ] at | New Structure Proposal | or you can click here.



      Report about the Open ASIFA Meeting during Ottawa'02
    ...written by Thomas Renoldner

    One of my main motives to visit the Ottawa'02 festival was that I thought, as the president of an international organisation with approximately two thirds of its members coming from USA and Canada, I should try to get more personal contact with people from these parts of the world. This concerned not only members or representatives from ASIFA Groups from USA and Canada, but I was more generally interested to meet besides the animation artists also representatives of all kinds of organisations working in the field of animation, also in order to think about possible cooperations.

    The Ottawa Festival was so kind to invite me for hotel room and festival pass (many thanks to Chris Robinson and Kelly Neall) and I really had a good time meeting also many new people, which I either knew only via e-mail, or which I did not know before.
    The Animator's Picnic was the very best occasion to get new contacts: I distributed invitations for the "ASIFA Breakfast" (for a 9 a.m. meeting I thought I should invent a more attractive title than 'ASIFA Open Meeting'). I spoke with around fifty people during this time, and I was really quite delighted to meet so many "e-mail"-correspondance-partners physically for the first time.

    The Open ASIFA Meeting was very well visited (for an 9 a.m. meeting). Around 30 people from USA and Canada, but also from Europe and Brazil (name list attached below) came, many of them "important people" like representatives of ASIFA Groups or other organisations, festival directors, animation professors etc.
    I explained my "Proposal for a new organisational structure of ASIFA", and I received only positive response. The very friendly reception of my person, which I experienced during this meeting, and the positive feedback concerning my new structure proposal motivated me strongly to move forward with a reformation, which is regarded to be necessary by many people.

    Thanks for coming and for the support!
    Thomas Renoldner
    Participants were: Amy Kravitz (USA), Sarah Fay Krom (ASIFA USA Atlanta), Adrian Lokman (Holland), Julia Burns (Cananda, Quickdraw Animation Society), Tedd Dillon (Canada), Lorelei Pepi (USA), David Ehrlich (USA), Deann Morse (ASIFA USA Central), David Baker (Kalamazoo Festival), Jim Middleton (ASIFA USA Central), John Serpentelli (ASIFA Workshop Group), Ray Kosarin (USA), Leslie Bishko (Canada), Michele Cornoyer (Canada, NFB), Jacques Drouin (Canada, NFB), Sylvain Levesque (Canada), Helen Tanguay (Canada, NFB), Nicole Salomon (ASIFA Honorary General Secretary), George Schwizgebel (Switzerland), Martine Chartrand (Canada), Lucie Belanger (Canada), Lynne Slater, Edwin Austin, Edward Bakst (USA), Cesar Coelho (Anima Mundi Festival)



      ASIFA Euskadi: Press Conference - San Sebastian, 25th September 2002
    ASIFA Euskadi, the national ASIFA chapter from the Basque country (Spain) invited me to attend the Press conference in San Sebastian (25 Sept.), to take place during the big international feature film festival.

    This group has been revitalized this year and has rich program and ambitious plans for the future. This Press Conference had the aim to show the local authorities and public that ASIFA Euskadi is a part of an important international Association consisting of members from more than fifty countries on all the continents. A very significant agreement was signed at this conference - the contract between ASIFA Euskadi and the Basque Producers Accociation. Beside other advantages, this cooperation will enable the group to get the office with one paid person to regularely be at service to members.

    ASIFA Euskadi has many activities, among most important ones is helping artists to find money for their new projects and helping people to find job in the production companies.
    They organised the exhibition of Basque animation they would like to offer to other ASIFA groups on the basis of exchange.

    Their plans for the future are:
  • 1. Animation school project - they initiated the foundation of the animation school in the frame of a public school.
  • 2. International animation festival in San Sebastian

    The ASIFA Euskadi President Mr. Juan Batista Berasategi, who is producer himself, is leading the group with big enthusiasm and capability of making ASIFA Euskadi the center of animation in the Basque country.

    Vesna Dovnikovic
    ASIFA Secretary General



    •   The Norman Mc Laren Heritage Award 2002: goes to Nicole Salomon
    During the Ottawa 2002 Animation Festival, ASIFA Canada presented at the Closing Ceremony the Norman McLaren Award to Nicole Salomon.
    The text below was written by Jaques Drouin, and presented by Marco de Blois on stage.
    The prize was a painting showing the lake of Annecy, done by animation artist Caroline Leaf.

    "Since 1988, this prize has been given by ASIFA-Canada to a film-maker or an institution for the body of their work.

    This year, ASIFA-Canada gives this Award to a person who has devoted a great part of her life to the art of animation. Because of her dedication to the genuine animation film-makers and because of her enormous effort to have them reconized and promote their works, she fulfils by far, all the criterions demanded to the candidates for this prize.

    She was part of the very first gatherings of animators. She has become a link for all the artists of this profession. She understood very early that animation is an artistic activity that has its own history, its own masterpeices like any other art form. She felt that those films had to be presented to the public and especially to young people.

    She was co-founder of the Atelier de cinéma d'animation d'Annecy et de Haute-Savoie where for more than 30 years, she initiated young people to the practice of animation in a way that Norman McLaren would have totally approved. She made sure that students understood that behind an animated film, there is a director involved both in the pursuit of an idea as well as a technical challenge.

    By giving her this Award, ASIFA-Canada wants to highlight the important role she has played in order to share an important heritage but an undangered one. Her dedication to the art of animation should be an inspiration for those who beleive that it is more than ever necessary to defend that type of cinema at a time where the public is flooded by industrial products. The art of animation will not survive without people like her who are ready to fight for it.

    It is with great admiration that we give the Norman McLaren Award to Nicole Salomon.

    ASIFA-Canada, Ottawa 2002"



      International Animation Day - Celebrations in France (organised by AFCA)
    The French ASIFA Group (Association Francaise du Cinema d'Animation - AFCA) transformed the International Animation Day into a big feast. Instead of one day the French ASIFA Group celebrated the art of animation during five days ! - between 25th and 29th september 2002 - and even in many different towns all over the country.

    About 130 showplaces throughout France participated with screenings, exhibitions, workshops, demonstrations, meetings or other initiatives, with the support of film archives, cinemas, libraries, associations and festivals (among them Annecy and Clermont-Ferrand), as well as a large number of animation film schools.

    This was a real strong promotion for the art of animation, we can only congratulate heartly, and hope that the project will find many successors in many ASIFA Groups next year.

    Very well done!!!

    More detail can be found at www.afca.asso.fr



      International Animation Day - Celebrations in Portugal (organised by Casa da Animacao)
    The "House of Animation" (Casa da Animacao) in Porto opened its doors on
    28th october 2002, on occasion of the
    International Animation Day (initiated by former ASIFA President Abi Feijo).

    Followed by this festivity, between october 28th and november 3rd,
    Casa da Animacao presented a retrospective dedicated to the French Animation Studio Folimage.


    More information about this important center for the Art of Animation in Portugal can be found at:

    www.casa-da-animacao.pt



      International Animation Day - Celebrations in India and Israel
    Also the ASIFA Chapter in India, which is leaded by Bill Dennis at Toonzanimation, participated in the International Animation Day project.
    A Media event took place at the Padmalaya Studios and Colorchips Studios, and included the announcement of the ASIFA India awards, the introduction of Manasa Rao (an 11 year old girl from Hyderabad) screening her 3 minute film, "Cute Bunny" (from the 2002 Children's Animation Workshop)and meetings of ASIFA-India members.


    And also on the homepage of ASIFA Israel I found information about their participation:
    On their homepage (asifa.net/israel) one can read:
    ASIFA Israel will be celebrating this event with a festive board-meeting, and a toast for a better future.
    As for all you animators and animation lovers, you can mark this day by doing something special related to animation:
    Maybe today you'll start making that short film you've been planning but never had the time or energy to begin, maybe this evening you'll rent an animated film and watch it on your DVD, or maybe you can just share the news with your friends and raise their awareness to this special day.
    Good so...



      Vranje 2002 - the 3rd International Children Animation Workshop
    Vranje, 1000 years old town (65000 inhabitants) on the south of Serbia (Yugoslavia) has its very active SAF, Children Animation Workshop, that was celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Under the guidance of their enthusiastic head Mr. Miki Simonovic, this group of children got the precious experience in animation and found its place in the international children animation community.

    From 13 to 21 September they organized the 3rd International Children Animation Workshop under the patronage of the Serbian Ministry for Culture, City Council of Vranje and ASIFA Yugoslavia.

    For nine days children from several Serbian towns and from Egypt worked in four groups using following techiques: cartoon, clay, pixilation and origami. The mentors of the groups were Sayoko Kinoshita (Japan), Pencho Kunchev (Bulgaria), Bordo Dovnikovic (Croatia) and Stoja Gavranovic (Yugoslavia) who also presented the programs of their works to children.


    During the workshop Nikola Majdak, president of ASIFA Yugoslavia, organized the meeting of the ASIFA YU national group with ASIFA Vice President Sayoko Kinoshita, ASIFA Secretary General Vesna Dovnikovic and the President of ASIFA Bulgaria Pencho Kunchev.

    Every day on the main city square there was a show of children from different cities performing the national music and dance, the Egyptian group from Alexandria being the most attractive.

    On the final evening in the city theatre the result of the young animators' efforts was screened, and diplomas of 3rd Workshop were granted to the participants, in the presence of the mayor and other guests.

    The workshop organizers promissed to systematically enlarge the participation of children delegations from abroad at their next biennial events.

    Bordo Dovnikovic



      In memoriam Aleksandar Marks (1922-2002)
    One of significant representatives of Zagreb school of animated film

    Aleksandar Marks, a great Croatian animation director and designer and one of the founders of Zagreb Shool of Animated Film - passed away on 7 September, at the age of eighty one.

    Marks was born in 1922 in Cazma, a little town near Zagreb. He studied at Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts and decided for animation in 1951. In 1954 together with Nikola Kostelac he realized the first Yugoslav cartoon film in colour - The Little Red Ridinghood. In 1954/55 he was the head designer in Vukotic/Kostelac group, which realized the famous serial of animated commercials, that is considered the origin of Zagreb School of animated film. They abandoned the way trodden by Walt Disney and discovered, parallel with UPA and Czech animation, a new language - in the reduced animation and stylized drawing.

    Marks' role was very significant for the founding of the Studio for cartoon film of Zagreb Film in 1956. He was a designer of the first project of the Studio, The Playful Robot of Dusan Vukotic. Together with the director Vukotic, he created films Cowboy Jimmy and Spring Sounds (1957), and with Kostelac On the Meadows (1957).

    Directly after that he became a creative partner with the director Vatroslav Mimica, who realized the films essential for an inroad of Zagreb animation into the world: Alone and Happy End (1958), By the Photographer's, The Inspector Returns Home, The Egg (1959), The Everyday Chronicle (1962) and Typhoid (1963). The films from 1958 (together with the films of Vukotic and Kostelac) called out an international attention at the Film Festival in Cannes, after that the critics Georges Sadoul and Andre Martin launched the name Zagreb school of animated film.

    From 1960 Marks, as a designer, and Vladimir Jutrisa, as an animator, are together creating a series of independent cartoon films: Metamorphosis (1964), The Kind-Hearted Ant (1965), The Fly (1966), Sisiphus (1967), A Small Mermaid, The Spyder (1969), Ecce Homo (1979), Nightmare (1977), Obsession (1983)...

    His works won plenty of significant awards and recognitions at national and international film festivals.

    Ranko Munitic defined excelently Aleksandar Marks as a creator:

    He is one of the best drawers and prominents of Zagreb school; he is an artist of a refined graphism, who finds in Jutrisa his con-ingenious animator. Their films make a special cycle of onyric horror, an unique one in the modern animation.

    Parallel with animation, Marks successfully worked on illustration and graphic design, and on newspaper cartoon in fifties. He took part in the artistic conducting of Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films since its beginning.

    Borivoj Dovnikovic
    Zagreb, 2.10.2002



      Ottawa 2002 Festival Report
    For this report about the Ottawa Animation Festival 2002 I recorded interviews with 14 festival guests.
    I tried to choose as different people as possible, from different regions and professions...

    These 14 statements already give quite a good image of the festival, and there are just a few things I would like to add - partly things a few people said, after I had swichted the microphone off....

    And: The remarks I add here, try to describe what makes the Ottawa Festival different from others - in my opinion.......
    (Thomas Renoldner)
       The report can be found in the [ FESTIVAL ZONE ] at | Reports | or you can click here


    U P C O M I N G    F E S T I V A L S

    ESPINHO / Portugal - www.cinanima.pt - November 4 to 10, 2002

    UTRECHT / Holland - www.awn.com/haff - November 13 to 17, 2002