Anima 2008 is taking place in the Flagey centre (Brussels) from 1st to 9th February. This year’s event will be marked by diversity as spectators once again take their annual dose of new, funny, quirky and curious images and discover the latest trends in international animation.
The Futuranima forum will also take place in Flagey on the 7th, 8th and 9th February and is for animation professionals, students and enthusiasts interested in discovering what goes on behind the scenes of selected productions.
The Festival is kicking off early this year till 9th February in all the Flagey movie theatres, in Brussels, as well as the film museum for part of a retrospective on Max Fleisher.
Anima is also travelling around the country, to such town as Liege, Ghent, Charleroi, Namur and Mons.

A double opening bill

“Fear(s) of the Dark” is a new animated film created by a collection of internationally reputed comic book artists: Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard Mc Guire and not forgetting Etienne Robial. “Fear(s) of the Dark” will open Anima on Friday 1st February, while the superb Swiss-Belgian co-production “Max & Co” by the Guillaume brothers, will be the opener for the kids the next day.
Both of these films have their own exhibition in Flagey and are the subject of a Futuranima conference.

A new look competition

The Anima international competition takes on a new look this year with the arrival of a new category for music videos and commercials running alongside the short films and features. Just the occasion to catch up with a sector bursting with energy that owes a lot to animation and gives back well in return…
The feature category is also particularly rich this year with fourteen selected features and eight in competition.

There are seventy nine short films in the international competition, twenty two in the Belgian competition and forty in the “commercials and music videos” competition category. Added to those, there are also twenty nine shorts in the out of competition section that can be seen during the “Nuit animée”, and fourteen Belgian shorts in “panorama”.

Diversity is the name of the game along with a lasting concern for graphic prowess. Full CGI is giving place to more sophisticated and often hybrid types of animation and drawing is back, but with a new twist.
Asian countries like Korea and Thailand have joined Japan this year in force, and even if not all of the screenplays have the same intensity, there is still a great diversity of subjects.

Juries

Three different juries will decide between the films in competition.
The international short film jury is made up of Arthur de Pins (France), Fumio Obata (Great Britain) and Regina Pessoa (Portugal).
The international jury for commercials and music videos is made up of Belgian professionals Mehdi Dewalle (Art Director), Jan Bultheel (filmmaker) and Sergio Honorez (filmmaker).
The Belgian short film jury is made up of cartoonist Nix, filmmaker Cecilia Marreiros and Laurent Valière, journalist and filmmaker at France Inter.


Retrospectives

Rosto and PES, two guests, two strong personalities
Two great influences in contemporary animation are Anima’s guests this year.

PES is an American who takes different everyday objects and turns them into quirky and spectacular commercials for such brands as Nike, Orange, Baccardi or Diesel. His short films are also full of his own brand of crazy and sometimes caustic humour.

Rosto is Dutch and originally from the alternative music scene. He has since fallen in love with animation and developed his very own dynamic and dark personal universe, bordering on Gore and Gothic, but still remaining true to his musical roots.

Max Fleischer: a tribute at last!

He gave us Popeye, Betty Boop and many others.
In collaboration with the Film Museum, Anima is paying tribute to that eternal second to Walt Disney and often more creative artist Max Fleischer (1883 – 1972), with two features and a representative collection of his short films to be shown at Anima and the Film Museum.
Strangely enough, few festivals have focused on this giant of American animation till now.


Events

Siggraph Electronic Theatre

Siggraph, the key international event for all types of digital imagery, is Anima’s guest for the second time. This American festival is the main event of its kind in the world and takes place in a different American city each year. The highlight of the festival is the Electronic Theatre competition for 3D imagery which Anima is showing in an extended HD version.

Terrence Masson

President of Siggraph 2006 and a special effects pioneer - he has worked on such films as “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Batman Forever” – Terrence Masson will present the Electronic Theatre along with a conference about the history of CGI, the Computer Generated Images Story.

Wavelength 07

The Onedotzero Festival takes place each year in London and showcases digital imagery, including a great range of recent animation. It then travels all over the world and is making a stopover at Anima this year with “Wavelength 07”, a compilation of the newest and most innovating music videos around.

Sixty years of Polish animation

Some of the most beautiful animated shorts in the world come from Poland and artists such as Jan Lenica, Jerzy Kucia, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Piotr Dumala and Walerian Borowczyk. Anima is hosting an anthology of short films rarely seen in Belgium thanks to the ReAnimacja Festival in Lodz.

Young Polish animation

Young animators in Poland are very aware of the great talent of their predecessors, although this is not stopping them from exploring new means of expression. Some of the most important names from contemporary Polish animation are Tomasz Baginski (Oscar nominee in 2002), Grzegorz Jonkajtys, Wojciech Wawszczyk and Marek Skrobecki.


Young German animation

Although little known here, German auteur animation boasts a number of well-known artists like Raimund Krumme or the Lauenstein brothers. However with the current development of digital imagery, new talents are paving their way as this carte blanche to the Dok Festival in Leipzig ably shows.

The great animation workshop (Europalia Europa)

Over the generations Belgian and European animators have kept up a lively work exchange with conscious references, common sources and chance meetings.
Anima is presenting three original programmes to show off this fruitful exchange through the distinguished figure of Raoul Servais.

Prince Achmed

Inspired by the “Tales of the Arabian Nights”, this was the first feature animation made in Europe in the twenties by German filmmaker Lotte Reininger, and is still unequalled today as a masterpiece of paper cut-out animation.
Film-concert presented by the Tilleul Theatre.
Music composed and presented live by Alain Gilbert and Philippe Tasquin.
Narrated by Carine Ermans.
Presented in collaboration with the Music Council.

Le Chevalier d’Eon - Death Note

Praised by the specialised press in Japan as one of the main festivals in Europe to focus on Japanese culture, Anima is continuing to show programmes of exclusive mangas, with two features in the official selection and another two featurettes intended for video: “Le Chevalier d’Eon”, by Kazuhiro Furuhashi, 2006 and “Death Note”, by Obata Takeshi and Ooba Tsugumi, 2006.


The Pixar Story

This is an Anima exclusive retracing the history of the Pixar studio and its legendary figures – Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter – along with the new generation of filmmakers and the great names of Hollywood who have worked with this exemplary studio with its links to Disney.

2nd February: “La Nuit Animée”

This very “Animated Night” kicks off on the big screen of Studio 4, at 10 pm till late into the morning, and presents part of the Anima selection and a number of films chosen especially for the Night… with bars, music and DJs to make this animated experience into the liveliest and longest night of the year.

Cartoon d'Or

The best of European animation and nothing but the best.
This is the principle of the Cartoon d’Or, which rewards the best short film from a selection of prize-winning films from main European animation festivals, including Anima. The prize is rewarded during the Cartoon Forum, organised by CARTOON with support from the MEDIA programme of the European Union. Thanks to this prestigious award, the filmmaker is able to get future projects off the ground.

Children’s Festival

Apart from the features in competition, including some screened in the afternoons where children can vote for their own prize-winners, Anima is also presenting a selection of old or more recent animation and a perfect occasion to catch the films on the big screen before their release on video. On the bill: “Bee Movie”, “The Simpson’s Movie”, “Meet the Robinsons”, “Underdog”, “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Persepolis”.
The very young public has not been forgotten with a quality programme of short films including: “Petit à petit”, “Sous le soleil”, “Fabuleuses fabulettes” and “Le trop petit prince”.



Other activities

Pantalone
Every afternoon, the kids can make their own little animated films with the team of animators from Pantalone.

Festival “off”
The bars and hallways of Flagey will be resounding throughout the festival with mini concerts, DJs, background sounds and performances.
The groups include: Flo the Hoo & the broken hands (blues funk), Elements (groove), Iom Trio & Noamir (jazz and VJ), Undefined (hip hop and funk), DJs Freezly and Fred and to close Anima, the DJ FM Brussel party.

Two exhibitions

Anima is presenting two exhibitions linked to the Festival programme: one is showing the drawings from “Fear(s) of the Dark”, while the other focuses on the puppets and sets from “Max & Co”.

Anima boutique
Folioscope and Chalet films are setting up a boutique during Anima where visitors can buy a great selection of original DVDs often ignored by the commerce, along with work by invited guests, who will be available for signing sessions throughout the Festival.

Best of Anima 4 DVD
The Best of Anima 2007 DVD will be available from the boutique and also from the website.

Futuranima

Taking place on the 7, 8 and 9 February, the Futuranima conferences will look into different aspects of current animation production with over thirty European and Belgian industry professionals on the different panels.

Copyrights and new technology
Creative Commons, Google, I Tunes, Web.3, Second Life… boundaries and codes are breaking down in the virtual world. Do these new technologies spell radical changes in copyright laws? Or, on the other hand, is it just an evolution that copyright laws are learning to adapt to?
A SACD/Scam conference

Writing for frame by frame: le Cid

Using Emmanuelle Gorgiard’s film Le Cid, the SACD (l’Association des Scénaristes de l’Audiovisuel) will let us into the secrets of the writing process of the film.
Organised in partnership with the SACD and the ASA.


Max and Co
Two Belgian animators, Christine Polis and Kim Keukeleire, worked on the production of “Max and Co” from the beginning to the end. They will retrace the experience from idea to storyboard to the screen using video and photos and an autopsy of one of the main sequences.

Supinfogame
Supinfocom, the school of reference for 3D in Valenciennes, has broadened its horizons with Supinfogame, a department for the design and production of video games. Head of studies, Didier Quentin shows us some of the school’s best work.

The sound design for Fear(s) of the Dark

A demonstration of how a sound track is created using the films “Fear(s) of the Dark” and “Dji vou veult volti”.
With Franco Piscopo (Alea Jacta), Benoît Feroumont, director of “Bzz” and “Dji vou veult volti” and sound engineer Bertrand Boudaud.

Animation and typography: an unlikely mix?

With cinema, TV, computer or mobile phone screens offering a multitude of opportunities for animated typographic characters, are these moving signs able to create their own stories? This programme offers a voyage of discovery into a difficult and little-known genre.
A Scam screening

Panique au village, Work in progress

From a graduation film to a series and finally a feature film, “Panique au village” has spanned twenty years of its creators’ lives. But how do you go from a short to writing for a feature? How do you take it from the TV to the “big” screen?
Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier will be showing us just how such an adventure got off the ground with a few secrets about the making of the film, animation tests, storyboards and a sneak glimpse at the film itself.

The revival of Belgian animated series

A representative panel from main studios and production companies will talk about this new interest in Belgian animated TV series in the French Community.
Moderator: Daniel Couvreur, journalist (Le Soir).
In collaboration with the centre de l’audiovisuel et des multimédias de la Communauté française.

Izm and the “Lascars”

Ismaël Sy Savané, aka Izm, comes from the Parisian hip hop scene. Boris Dolivet, aka Eldiablo, is a comic book writer and scriptwriter. Both of them are now enjoying the great “Lascars” adventure, a TV phenomenon, already into its second season (to be aired shortly), and with a feature in production.

Panorama of French schools 2006–2007

This panorama of graduation films from 2006 and 2007 is rich in stories and diverse techniques and is an invitation to discover the hive of talent to be found in French animation today.
The programme is presented by the Forum des Images, (institution subsidised by Paris).

Conversation with Rosto

But, who is Rosto exactly? Everything in his work is an enigma, including his name. After Wednesday’s screening in Studio 4, there’s a chance to meet the enigma himself.