On Wednesday November 5 the twelfth edition of the Holland Animation Film Festival kicks off with the impressive animated documentary Waltz with Bashir of Ari Folman and the world premiere of Thee Wreckers: No Place Like Home directed by Dutch animation director Rosto.
Peter Lord, co-founder of Aardman Animations, attends HAFF as the Guest of Honour. He has compiled a special Aardman retrospective. The master will personally introduce the Aardman sections. They obviously include the famous Wallace & Gromit, but there is a lot more where that came from. In addition Peter Lord presents a programme at the festival featuring his personal animated favourites, covering almost one century of animation: from Willis O’Brien’s Prehistoric Poultry (1916) to Matthew Walker’s Astronauts (2005).
The whole selection of films, the special programmes, the international juryies and their competitions, the master classes and talk shows with hosts Paul Wells and Pierre Floquet, the workshops with open source software Blender, the Aardman retrospective, the hilarious festival leader directed by HAFF 2002 Grand Prix-winner Pete Bishop, the poster designed by jury member Richard McGuire, the Oscar winning Peter and the Wolf by jury member Suzie Templeton, the public animated installation Intra Muros by artist Rose Bond at the windows of the city hall and info of all films in the programme and the Audience Award Dutch Animation, the debate about the cross pollination between games and animation and so much more ….

Not to mention the fifty finalists in the first international HAFFTube web competition. The winner to be announced at the opening night next week!