Academy Award® Winning Creators of Auteur Based, Bittersweet, Animated Clayographies for the Cinema! Adam Elliot Pictures is a critically acclaimed independent animation film studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Viewed by millions, our five animated films have participated in over six-hundred film festivals and have received over one hundred awards, including an Oscar ® in 2004 for “Harvie Krumpet”. Written and directed by Adam, his aim is to create unique and bittersweet animations, or as he calls them, 'Clayographies' - clay animated biographies. Our highly skilled team of animators and modelmakers spend thousands of painstaking hours bringing his comic and poignant cinematic stories to life. Costing millions of dollars and taking years to complete, our team use traditional 'in-camera' techniques, which means every prop set and character is a 'real' miniature handcrafted object. Based on the people around him, Adam’s universal stories are personal and unique biographies that deal with themes from the achingly funny to the darkly melancholic and have entertained and nourished people in nearly every country on earth. For people of all ages his scripts attract and are voiced by some of the worlds finest actors including, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette, Geoffrey Rush, Eric Bana and Barry Humphries. Contact : Adam Elliot, Company Owner, Writer and Director : [email protected] Samantha Fitzgerald, Assistant to Mr. Elliot : [email protected] www.adamelliot.com.au ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Please note that Adam Elliot Pictures does not accept unsolicited scripts; Adam only writes and directs his own work. 1 Adam’s Biography. Born upside down and back to front in 1972, Adam was raised in the Australian Outback on a shrimp farm with his father - a retired acrobatic clown, his mother - a hairdresser, three siblings and two parrots called Sunny and Cher. After the farm went bankrupt, Adam's father moved the family back to the city of Melbourne, where he bought a hardware shop and tried to blend in. Adam was a very shy child and loved to lock himself in his bedroom, spending hours drawing and making things out of egg-cartons and toilet-roll tubes. Despite being sent to a private boy's school where he excelled at Art, English-literature, Photography, Drawing and Sculpture, Adam failed dismally in all the ‘important’ subjects like Maths, Science, Religious Studies and anything to do with throwing balls. Due to his poor grades, his lifelong ambition to become a famous veterinarian has never been fulfilled. In extra curriculum activities Adam flourished and was a keen member of the school’s Highland Pipe Band where got over his shyness by playing the Bass-drum and wearing an antique taxidermic lion robe. He also enjoyed acting and wearing skivvies. In his final year he was awarded the school’s highest honour, The A.G. Greenwood Trophy for an outstanding dramatic performance as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes play “The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca”. Despite the usual teenage ups and downs, Adam continued to draw and make things. Born with a physiological tremor, his shakiness never got in the way and was incorporated into a unique and quirky aesthetic. Today this has become famously known as the ‘chunky-wonky’ style. Upon leaving school, and to his parents dismay, Adam spent five years hand-painting teeshirts at a local craft market. His most popular design was 'Murray the tap-dancing Dim-Sim’, which he put in pizza-boxes and sold for an overinflated price. In 1996 he became bored and decided to study animation at The Victorian College of the Arts. There he made his first stopmotion film, “Uncle”, which surprised everyone by becoming a worldwide hit. He suddenly realised he liked filmmaking and has since dedicated himself to the artform, producing four more films, “Cousin”, “Brother”, “Harvie Krumpet” and “Mary and Max”. To everyones surprise Adam was recently announced as an Australia National Treasure! In 1999 he was made Young Victorian of the Year and is the official patron of “The Other Film Festival”, new cinema by, with and about people with a disability. He is a voting member for the Annual Academy Awards and in 2003 the Annecy International Animation Festival included “Harvie Krumpet” as one of the top 100 animated films of all time. In demand as an international corporate speaker Adam has told his inspiring and motivating life-story to hundreds of groups around the world; from huge multinationals to his local library. He lives his life by the famous quote, “that life can only be understood backwards but we have to live it forwards” and via his website thousands of copies of his dvds as well as his quirky and original artwork have been acquired by fans around the globe. He is currently writing his new feature animation, and in between cups of Earl-grey tea, goblets of pretentious French merlot and bouts of Rachmaninov on his piano, he enjoys antique shopping, cooking Tessa Kiros feasts, reading the classics and walking his two pugs, Barry and Kevin. October 2009 2 FILMOGRAPHY UNCLE The biography of a humble man, his lemon tree, chihuahua and crumpets. Written, Directed and Animated by Adam Elliot. Produced by The Victorian College of the Arts, 1996, 6 minutes. Narrated by William McInnes. Uncle voiced by John Flaus. COUSIN The biography of a cousin, his special arm, pet rocks and shopping trolley. Written, Directed, Animated and Produced by Adam Elliot, 1998, 5 minutes. Narrated by William McInnes. BROTHER The biography of a brother, his cigarette butts, asthma and head lice. Written, Directed, Animated and Produced by Adam Elliot, 1999, 8 minutes. Narrated by William McInnes. HARVIE KRUMPET The biography of an ordinary man seemingly cursed with perpetual bad luck. Written, Directed and Animated by Adam Elliot. Produced by Melanie Coombs. 2003, 22 minutes. Narrated by Geoffrey Rush. Cameos from Kamahl, John Flaus and Julie Forsythe. MARY AND MAX The biographies of two lonely pen-friends that spans two continents and twenty years. Written, Directed and Designed by Adam Elliot. Produced by Melanie Coombs. 2009, 93 minutes. Narrated by Barry Humphries. Max voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Mary voiced by Toni Collette. Damian voiced by Eric Bana. Cameos from Molly Meldrum and Renee Geyer. 3 AWARDS AND ACCOLADES MARY AND MAX Official Selection and Opening Night Film Sundance Film Festival USA 2009, Grand Crystal Best Feature Animation Annecy Animation Festival France 2009, Best Feature Animation Ottawa Animation Festival Canada 2009, Best Feature Animation Stuttgart Animation Festival Germany 2009, Best Foreign Fiction Film Mike Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival Michigan USA 2009, Crystal Bear Special Mention Berlin Film Festival Germany 2009, Audience Award and Special mention Zagreb Animation Festival Croatia 2009, Best Direction in a Feature Film Australian Directors Guild 2009 Awards, Best Screenplay Queensland Premiere’s Literary Awards Australia 2009, IF Award for Best Production Design 2009, IF Nomination for Best Director 2009, IF Nomination for Best Screenplay, IF Nomination for Best Musical Score, AFI Nomination for Best Film, AFI Nomination for Best Screenplay, AFI Nomination for Best production Design, AFI Nomination for Best Peer Voted Film, HARVIE KRUMPET 2003 Academy Award ® Best Short Animated Film, Annecy International Animation Festival 2003 Prix FIPRESCI, Annecy International Animation Festival, 2003 Prix du public (Audience award), Annecy International Animation Festival 2003 Prix special du jury (Special jury award), Melbourne Int Film Festival's Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short, Leeds International Film Festival short animation Louis Le Prince Prize 2003, Valladolid International Film Festival Spain Special Jury Prize 2003, Leipzig Documentary and Animation Festival Germany Honorary Mention 2003, 2003 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Animated Short Film, Cinamina 2003 Portugal grand prix and audience award and award for Best film between 21 and 52 minutes, The Australian Comedy Awards -Best Comic Animation 2003, I castelli animati Italy Grand Prize, Best film in competition at 2003 Foyle Film Fest Ireland, Best Animated Short 2003 and Best Screenplay Rencontres Internationales du Cinema d’Animation (RICA) Wissembourg France, 2004 Animadrid Spain-First prize 2003 Animadrid Spain-Public Award 2003 Audience Award, Premi del públic al millor curt d’animació: Sitges Anima’t, Spain 2003 Audience Award, Prémio do Publico, FIKE 2003, Portugal 2003 Flickerfest, Internation Film Festival, Bondi Australia 2004 Best Animation, Honourable Mention Sundance Film Festival 2004, Short Film Competition, Best Animation World of Comedy International Film Festival Canada 2004, Kurz Short Film Festival Hamburg Audience Award for International Competition, Minimalen 2004, Norway – Audience Award, Worldwide Short Film Festival Canada, Best Animated Short St Kilda Film Festival Australia, Best Animation in kind SFX 2004 Tabor Film Festival Croatia, Audience Award Anima Mundi Rio de Janeiro Best Short Animation, Anima Mundi, Rio de Janeiro third prize for Best Screenplay Award by the Jury Anima Mundi, Sao Paulo third prize for Best Short Animation Audience Award, Chiavari Festival Italy the Special Jury Award, 2004 Chiavari Festival Italy, the Audience Award 2004 Chiavari Festival Italy, Monica Cavalieri award for Best Plasticine Film, Audience Award at the 23rd Uppsala International Short