12TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL 1 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Greetings All Digital culture and the highly digitised future we are light-beaming towards can act as either the white knight or the Grim Reaper in this MIAF #12, who woulda thunk it? endeavour. With the ease and relative inexpense of creating digital This little missive usually gets written about last during the catalogue imagery at our fingertips, we are risking mega-sizing every aspect of production mayhem that swamps us each year in the lead up to the our visual culture menu to the point where we simply lose the ability to festival, and I’m happy to report that this is exactly what has happened truly value one set of images against another; the cultural norm becomes again for 2012. Traditions are important to any organisation. The temptation simply flicking through images for the sake of it, barely stopping to to write 2013’s ‘Welcome’ right after I finish this one is nearly overwhelming understand them as they flip by our crowded, increasingly full though, just to see what kind of karmic reaction would be unleashed. consciousness to the point where we become attuned to treating all visual culture as a kind of vapour/wallpaper. If that attitude to visual It would be fair to say that, for the most part, this gets left til last for the culture takes hold we surrender the need to save this history because same reason pots and pans get left til last. But that said, the single we almost stop seeing it as history at all. advantage that can be squeezed out of this one-minute-to-midnight approach is that often a bolt of inspirational lightning can cut through On the other hand, digital technology so obviously holds massive the panic-fog and provide at least a stepping-off point that is relevant promise for preserving some version of this material for all time, or at and at least a little bit insightful. least until the death-ray ships touch down or we finally knock over one tree too many and burn ourselves to little crispy remnants of what used I’ll leave the degrees of relevance and insightfulness for others to judge to be the dominant species on the 3rd rock from the sun. but at about 4am this morning I penned the Introduction to our Technique Focus (Live Action / Animation Hybrid) and, as often happens at 4am, it The true outcome, of course, will rest uneasily between these two poles. veered off in a totally different direction to the exhaustive and detailed It’s where the balance lies between them that is up for grabs – that’s the notes I’d wrangled to help me pull something vaguely lucid together. bit we can affect. For me, I’d be happy to just help get Grendel, Grendel, Grendel back on the big screen, at least for starters! I found myself wandering through the dusty history of the artform we are all here to celebrate. The tenor of the piece was the notion that I can’t really close this off without recording a belated farewell to because animation, and cinema in general, is only about 100 years old, Sarah Watts, a Melbourne animator who produced some of Australia’s as fans we are sitting on an artform whose very roots can be recorded most beautiful and original animated films. I have seen her films for all time. The progressions, trends, fashions, fads and developments screened at festival after festival and always include at least one in need not slip into the muddy swamps of history to be consumed by every historical Australian program I am asked to create for overseas weird frogs that will never give it back to us. screenings. They are universally adored! I can’t claim to have known Sarah especially well, but I knew and loved her work. Those who knew Those memories and histories come in many forms. For years, for and loved her personally must surely be carrying some wonderful example, I have been trying to bring together a program showcasing the memories of having known a person of uncommon modesty, grace and work of the Colossal Studio in San Francisco, the people who gave us talent. The rest of us have her films which are gift enough. They are but the earliest MTV animation, Liquid TV and one of the most famous early one more thing we should not surrender to the passing of time. Prince music videos. I have shared long lunches with some of the key Godspeed Sarah. players, visited the studios of Wild Brain (the company that rose up from the ashes when Colossal went down) and recorded interviews with Malcolm TURNER people who created it. Prodded on by my interest in the studio, one of DIRECTOR: Melbourne International Animation Festival the key players, Drew Takahashi, has spent ALOT of time pulling their CO DIRECTOR: Australian International Animation Festival old stuff out from under long forgotten piles, digitally rebuilding it and CO DIRECTOR: London International Animation Festival trying to figure out what some of it is. When I offered him my apologies CO PROGRAMMER: UTS Sydney International Animation Festival for putting him through this horror he responded with, “I’m glad you did, ANIMATION PROGRAMMER: New Zealand International Film Festival it’s really important that we don’t let our memories fade to sepia”. It’s a single line from one of several thousand emails I received this year, but it’s the line that has stuck with the strongest glue. Sitting down not long ago with Alex Stitt also made me think of the history of animation. Here is somebody who has created an incredibly important and influential body of animation and although alot of it is PS Check out this pretty floating around, it feels like it is a fragmented history that could easily swanky little pic that Melbourne artist, animator be disappearing without anybody really noticing. This is just wrong. OK, and teacher Sue Stamp it’s not possible, probably, to save everything that somebody like Alex waxed up in about 15 Stitt has created but let’s not let films like Grendel, Grendel, Grendel seconds in a café on a phone. Of course, it took us float over the horizon. It was Australia’s first animated feature. It’s all about a week to figure important. Perhaps an idea of its cultural reach can be understood by out how to get it off the phone! Waaaaaay better the fact that the person who first turned me onto it was Bill Plympton, than any photo. Trust me! who loves it! Nullarbor Congrats to the films selected for Melbourne International Animation Festival ESSENTIAL FUNDERS AND PARTNERS SCREENING PARTNERS Presenting Best of the Fest Presenting Careers Forum Program Supporter PREMIER SPONSORS CAST&CREW &THANKS DIRECTOR Malcolm Turner CO-DIRECTOR Nag Vladermersky FESTIVAL MANAGER Helen Gibbins EVENT CO-ORDINATOR (ACMI) Reece Goodwin (Mr Calm) PUBLICIST Eleanor Howlett, Sassy Red PR CATALOGUE EDITOR Liz White CATALOGUE DESIGNER Lin Tobias, CONTENTS La Bella Design DIGITAL COMPILING (ACMI) Tack Lim INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM ONE 16 ARTWORK ILLUSTRATION Susi Allender MIAF TRAILER John Power, Hung Lin INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM TWO 18 STUDENT JURY the students of Charles INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM THREE 20 Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW WEBSITE Helen Gibbins INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM FOUR 22 INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM FIVE 24 JUDGES (INTERNATIONAL) Andrew Hagan INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM SIX 26 Jamie Clennett INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM SEVEN 28 Laurent Monneron INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM EIGHT ABSTRACT 30 ACMI CREW Richard Sowada, Andre Bernard & the INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM NINE LONG SHORTS 33 ACMI Tech Crew, Vivianne McIllwane TECHNIQUE FOCUS: LIVE ACTION / ANIMATION HYBRID 34 and the Front of House Crew LATE NIGHT BIZARRE 38 SPECIAL THANKS Terri Dentry, Susan Stamp, Shirrah KIDS PROGRAM 40 Comeadow, John & Scottie at Arena AUSTRALIAN SHOWCASE 43 Printing, Deb Szapiro, Anj Malik at The Departure Lounge, Joe & Richard BEST OF THE NEXT: INTERNATIONAL 51 at The Shop Café, Dravich, Nim Harrison and the Open Channel Crew, Dan Torre BEST OF THE NEXT: AUSTRALIAN STUDENT ANIMATION SHOWCASE 54 and Lienors Torre, Pablo Munoz Gomez, CAREERS FORUM 57 Jane Colling, Nathan Charles and his Weekend Crew ANIMATION 101s 57 PROGRAMMING THANKS ALEX STITT PROFILE 58 (POLAND) Agnieszka Piechnik, PANORAMA PROGRAMS 61 Magda Rawa, Wlodzimierz Matuszewski, Piotr Kardas, Kinga Karbowniczek, PANORAMA: AUSTRALIA 63 Zofia Scislowska, Kryzysztof Gierat Lee Whitmore DEAD BUT NOT BURIED (FEATURE) PHIL MULLOY 64 Phil Mulloy KLASKY CSUPO: THE UNSEEN PILOTS 66 Tamaki Okamoto & Yoko Yamamoto Doris Clevens & Phillipe Moins POLISH STUDIO FOCUS 69 Vivien Halas Arlene Klasky, Gabor Csupo HALAS AND BATCHELOR 72 Megan Pearson, Gabe (sorry man, never NEW JAPANESE ANIMATION 74 caught your last name but it was great meeting you) FOCUS ON BELGIUM 76 Alex & Paddy Stitt Tristian Taylor LEE WHITMORE RETROSPECTIVE 78 Samantha Moore Katrina Mathers & The Lampshade Collective Crew INDEX FILMS 82 Julia Bourke Hung Lin INDEX FILMMAKERS 84 Lissa Pascale & Jason Glenfield A N D R E W 14 12TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL 12TH MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL 15 16 INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM ONE PROGRAMINTERNATIONAL ONE Ah, the ‘Opening Film’, one of the more pleasant MIAF rabbit holes I love spending Alright / Heureux time running down. I’ve found my fair share of dead ends and strange creatures down there as BELGIUM, 7’15, 2008 well as one or two that turned on me after I thought we were beginning to get along famously. DIRECTOR: Thierry Van Hasselt There’s no real criteria, no template or official policy. It just sort of ... depends really. Some years PRODUCER: FRMK, Zorobabel it’s one of the last scheduling decisions I make; other years there is a kind of six-month, leapfrog- A stunning opening film – a wondrous ride style parade in which one contender after another takes its turn as the lead candidate.