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13TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL 1 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Malcolm TURNER DIRECTOR: Melbourne International Animation Festival I have a beautiful god-daughter, Alex. I’m lucky to know her. That her My embrace of the ‘new’ – the DCP – couldn’t have started more Mum and Dad would nominate me to play this kind of role in her life fittingly than with the conversion of the legendary Alex Stitt film, GRENDEL is both a privilege for me and, considering my more or less comprehen- GRENDEL GRENDEL. Through a Pozible crowdfunding campaign that sively spectacular lack of preparedness for the gig, something approaching was supported by many true lovers of Australian film we were able to a reckless dereliction of duty on their part. finance the transfer of an unused 35mm print to this digital format. When I am in Australia I am bogged down with the festival and, Meeting and getting to know Alex and Paddy Stitt has been one of the when I’m overseas, I’m getting ready to get bogged down with the festival great delights of this festival cycle. Being able to utilise MIAF as a vehicle – once off the plane, I quite literally hit the tarmac running. It’s a lifestyle to preserve a digital copy of Alex’s first animated feature is about as I love and it makes MIAF possible but skipping out on taking the good as it gets for a festival like MIAF. The openness, generosity and opportunity to be just a liiiiiittle bit more involved in her life is one of the forbearance they have shown throughout this little adventure is here small number of regrets I suspect will settle on me when life’s fog begins acknowledged and gratefully tributed. Their reward, I hope, is the to close in. certain knowledge that a major chapter of their lives has been preserved She turns ten this year. Ten. Ten years ago MIAF was just starting to and will be available forevermore. feel established and viable. Internet was dial up; September 11 was front My newly adopted ethos to embrace both the old and the new has and centre; mild-mannered, middle-aged, slightly dotty animation permeated the very essence of MIAF. Other than the competition festival directors were allowed to take shampoo on aeroplanes (it’s screenings, we have continued with the historical retrospectives focusing true); and MIAF screenings were mostly on 35mm print with all the this year on Lithuanian film; the incredible and diverse works of Koji rest being on dear old betacam tapes. Yamamura; the phenomenal powerhouse that is the Portland animation This year, in competition we will screen just ONE 35mm print. scene; and the spectacle of the disparate and excelling Canadian indie Period. The tech sheet for the other 200 or so films in competition and community. In terms of the new, we have taken on the challenge to panorama show no less than 125 variations on digital file types. (If this broaden the conversation and deepen the insight of animation with year’s competition programs run without a glitch it will be purely down a new Symposium and RENDER, our inaugural conference. to the almost preternatural skill of the ACMI technical crew, especially I believe passionately that film festivals have a future and, in fact, Tack Lim who slaves away in a NASA-like tech centre two floors below an opportunity to thrive. But not if all they do is show films. If that is the Flinders Street footpath.) the only goal, then they will slowly atrophy into a decaying version of Film is done for I’m afraid and we’re all the worse for that. Tape- a giant YouTube. Film Festivals have to provide something unique and based screening formats are done for too but that doesn’t seem like valuable and, luckily, the really good ones already have that juice such a loss to be honest. In their place are ... what? Small pieces of embedded in their DNA. Film festivals have to celebrate, challenge, brightly coloured plastic with the uncertain promise that an invisible, and discuss the artform they draw from. They must provide a kind of untouchable fleeting essence of a film can be transferred if the right ‘cultural hitching post’ for their community to tie up to and offer a kind slot is found, the right passwords typed. A new Martian Sanskrit that of welcome swing-door saloon for curious, weary strangers to walk resounds with phrases like codecs, H264, ProRes and even ‘frame rates’ through. They must sink a well around which people from far and wide (which means something utterly different now than it did 10 years ago) will gather in order to draw from. They have to light the campfire that sandpapers over a duopolistic screening format environment and inspires the knowing and the curious to sit around, mesmerised by the replaces it with a shattered windscreen of variants; almost every digital flames and share the wisdom of the aged, the stories of the current screening file has a unique component to it. and the ideas of the future. However, instead of ranting at the moon and gesticulating madly Additions to the MIAF line-up such as RENDER and the Symposium about the forestificationisation of digital file types, I plan to ride out the speak to these goals in the best way I know how. In ways small and storm, zen-like, and await the universalisation of the DCP – or Digital large, they speak to all of the lofty goals expressed above and will Cinema Package. simultaneously and subtly critique the overall programming, burnishing If you have been to a regular multiplex cinema in the last year it with an extra lustre that can only occur when a group of like-minded or two, the ‘film’ you have watched was a DCP. Pretty much every souls get together in the same spot to talk about the things they are mainstream feature arrives as a giant digital file stored in a metal box most passionate about. the size (ironically) of a VHS tape. It’s basically just a pimped-up pen Sounds like a good time to me. drive that gets rammed into a slot in a server underneath the projector, downloaded, stored and played as required. It’s a technology so easy to use that I’ve been able to learn it myself and it is about to become not just standard but ubiquitous. And its arrival as a ubiquitous screening format is the best hope that a festival of the size and diversity of MIAF can viably continue. It is that big a deal. Malcolm TURNER DIRECTOR: Melbourne International Animation Festival CO DIRECTOR: Australian International Animation Festival CO DIRECTOR: London International Animation Festival ANIMATION PROGRAMMER: New Zealand International Film Festival 6 13TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL ESSENTIAL PARTNERS SCREENING PARTNERS CG Symposium Alex Stitt Programs Screening Partner: Screening Partner: Careers In Animation Opening Night Forum Presenter: & Best of the Fest Screening Partner: Koji Yamamura Programs Supporter: PREMIER SPONSOR SUPPORTING SPONSORS 13TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL 7 CAST& CREW &THANKS DIRECTOR Malcolm Turner CO-DIRECTOR Nag Vladermersky FESTIVAL MANAGER Helen Gibbins ADMIN ASSISTANT Fiona Dalwood EVENT CO-ORDINATOR (ACMI) Julia Browne DIGITAL COMPILING (ACMI) Tack Lim contents BIG HELP Reece Goodwin INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM ONE 12 CATALOGUE EDITOR / BIG HELP Liz White CATALOGUE DESIGNER INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM TWO 14 Lin Tobias / La Bella Design PUBLICIST Eleanor Howlett / Sassy Red PR INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM THREE 16 INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM FOUR 18 TECH SUPPORT (Volunteer) Ben Ommundson GUEST GUIDE (Volunteer) Perri Hunter INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM FIVE 20 OFFICE SUPPORT (Volunteer) Dominique Musico INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM SIX Abstract 22 INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM SEVEN Long Shorts 25 ARTWORK+TRAILER Martinus Klemet (Estonia) WEBSITE+DESIGN Helen Gibbins INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM EIGHT 3D Stereoscopic Shorts 26 ACMI CREW ANIMATION XCESS 28 Richard Sowada, Andre Bernard & the ACMI LATE NIGHT BIZARRE! 30 Tech Crew, Vivienne McIlwaine + Britt Romstad & the entire Front of House Team, and the KIDS 1 32 army of wonderful ACMI volunteers KIDS 2 33 JUDGES THE AUSTRALIAN SHOWCASE 35 Andrew Hagan Jilli Rose BEST OF THE NEXT: INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE ANIMATION 43 Simon O’Carrigan John Piper PANORAMA PROGRAMS 47 MUSIC VIDEO Collection 51 BIG THANKS (PROGRAMMING) Phillip Grace, Alex & Paddy Stitt, Phillip Adams, INSTALLATION PROGRAM 51 Bill Plympton, David Atkinson, ALL the RENDER, CG Symposium & Animation 101 Presenters CAREERS FORUM 53 (what a great cast!!), Munro Ferguson + ANIMATION 101s 53 Danielle Viau + Chinda Phommarinh (NFB), Patrick Jenkins, Madi Piller, Laura Leif, FEATURE: Alex STITT 55 Kim Anderson, Joanna Priestley, Joan C. Gratz, Sven Bonnischsen, Andy & Amy Collens, SPECIAL GUEST: Koji YAMAMURA 60 Kristina Kaghdo, Skirmante Jakaite, SPECIAL GUEST: Patrick JENKINS 64 Urte Budinaite Persistence of Vision (FEATURE) Kevin SCHRECK 66 BIG THANKS (ALL ROUND) Susi Allender, Terri Dentry, Susan Stamp, Shirrah Comeadow, The Pain And The Pity (FEATURE) Phil MULLOY 67 John & Scottie at Arena Printing, Anj Malik SPECIAL PROGRAM: Portland Focus: Animation Powerhouse 68 at The Departure Lounge, Colin South, Peter Viska, Richard at PC Metro, Paul Fletcher + SPECIAL PROGRAM: Canadian Indie Showcase 70 Robert Stephenson, Kim Edwards, Rosea Capper-Starr, Jeremy Parker + John Power, SPECIAL PROGRAM: 100 Years of Lithuanian Animation 74 Rosemary Woodcock, Colin Perry, Jus Batchelor, SPECIAL PROGRAM: NFB 3D Stereoscopic Collection 76 Open Channel, Jamie Clennet, George Siosi Samuels, Michelle Baginski RENDER: Animation Conference 77 AND.......... Amanda Heatley + Vicki Jackways MIAF CG Symposium 81 + Brian Scadden and everyone at PARK ROAD INDEX FILMS 83 POST for making a little piece of history happen. And an especial thanks to Cameron Harland INDEX FILMMAKERS 85 for making the call. Profound gratitude for all of your help and a grateful acknowledgement of the respect and devotion you all brought to the GRENDEL GRENDEL GRENDEL project.