INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL (LIAF 2005)

Celebrating the Hidden Face of Animation

The Second London International Animation Festival 23 - 28 August 2005

Turn on your TV in the early morning, especially at the weekend and what do you find, why animation. Well okay, but most of this animation on TV is aimed at kids, generally poorly made, rarely full motion but ideal for parents to dump their young ones in front of the set for a few hours. Now what have proved to be unexpectedly big box office in the cinema in recent years are animation features like Shrek. The virtue of a superlatively designed animation feature like Shrek was that it appealed to both kids and adults alike.

But where do you go to see animation these days - hardly turn on your TV set - despite a recent BBC4 series about British animation, good stuff is hard to find. The days of Claire Kitson's wonderful animation programmes on Channel 4 are long gone. Certainly we are not short of good feature animation from the USA, from our own Nick Park and from the Japanese, often pretty dark stuff based on their Manga tradition. However if you want to sample all the wonderful short animation being made in this country your only chance would be to see the excellent Best of British Animation programmes that Jayne Pilling has been responsible for over the past 10 years - a selection of titles are shown during the London Film Festival. Otherwise you would have to go to the Bradford International Animation Festival to get a sample of what's happening in the whole world of animation. That is until last year when the first London International Animation Festival burst on the scene.

Yes the LIAF is back and for six days - 23- 28 August you will have to chance to see over 300 films at the Curzon Soho Cinema . Festival directors Nag Vladermersky and Malcolm Turner received 1345 submissions for the festival, showing that animation is very much alive, and they finally narrowed the number down to 210 films, from 30 countries. They have two aims: one to bring animation to London instead of letting other places enjoy the pleasures and, secondly, to provide a showcase for the art of animation in its widest aspects. There are nine competitive programmes and the directors promise that in each programme you will be able to sample the great diversity possible in animation today. Certainly a few sample titles I saw lived up to this promise.

Workin' Progress (France) .G.Garcia/B.Fligans/G. Vandendaele/ B.Flinois was a zippy film set to Glen Miller music about an increasing number of men building skyscrapers in the US - the opening film of the first programme. In contrast, from Poland the crueller side of life was depicted in Tomek Baginski's Fallen Art where caricatured humans provide a decidedly off beat means of pleasure. Pure black and white is used in the French audience pleaser, The Crab's Revolution by Arthur de Pins in which those crabs which scuttle about sideways learn there are other ways of getting around. Two films using light as a motive, but with a decidedly darker tone to them - phantasmagorical creatures in a futuristic world - were Shane Acker's 9 from the USA and Shaun Clark's Lightman from the National Film and Television School. Like the best animation, almost indescribable and yet visually only something that could be conceived of through animation. Shaun also was responsible for the festival trailer.

As well as the audience a jury of Richard Arnall, Robert Morgan and Margot will be looking at the the competition programmes and on Sunday 28th the Best of the Fest will be shown. Outside of the competition there are lots of other things of interest - four longer shorts which allow the chance to get to know a character or develop a style not possible in a short running time. There's also a full-length feature from Estonia Frank and Wendy co-written and directed by that country's greatest animators, Kaspar Jancis, Ulo Pikkov, Pritt Tender and Priit Parn. Two programmes give an overview of British animation, with The Best of British Animation Awards providing a snapshot of what's been happening in the UK over the past decade and British Panorama programme providing a look at the last year in UK animation.

A spotlight will be shown on work made in the changing Baltic states, Lativa and Estonia as well as in the older republics of Georgia, the Ukraine and Belarus and how about Animated Documentaries - well you remember the famous Creature Comforts these range from autism, through mental illness to experiencing the bombing of Hiroshima.

The famous National Film Board of Canada has been producing great animation since 1939, Norman McClaren being the name most associated with it in the early days. Jacques Drouin , from the NFBC who is a master of the technique known as pinscreen animation will be presenting a master class where you will be able to learn all about this extraordinary yet painstaking technique, as well as introducing a programme of BFBC classics.

The 2nd London International Animation Festival screening at:
The Curzon Cinema Soho , 99 Shaftesbury Avenue , W1.
Tuesday 23-Sunday 28 August.

Tickets: single session £8 Full / £5 Concession
Festival pass (limited amount available): £65 Full / £45 Concession
Bookings: 020 7734 2255 or www.curzoncinemas.com
More information: www.liaf.org.uk

Kids animation session screening at:
The Clapham Picturehouse, 76 Venn St , Clapham SW4.
Saturday August 27th.

After the success of last year's inaugural London International Animation Festival, this years' festival has moved to a new venue, to the home of independent and arthouse cinema, the Curzon Soho. With several sold-out sessions last year and Time Out proclaiming in their New Years issue "At last the long awaited arrival of an annual London animation festival" we are proud to say we are back with more of the world's best and most recent animation, as well as a whole heap of specialised programmes, retrospectives and themed sessions. LIAF will showcase over 200 animated films from more than 30 countries from August 23 rd to the 28th.

Highlights of the festival include: All five 2005 Oscar nominated films including a special programme based around the winning film 'Ryan' by Chris Landreth, the UK premiere of the new animated feature film from Estonia's top animation studio - Eeestijoonisfilm - entitled 'Frank and Wendy', and a special visit to the festival from award-winning Canadian animator Jacques Drouin.

For more information please contact:

Website: www.liaf.org.uk

Among the highlights of this year's festival:

• We are extremely proud to announce that one of the world's top animators, historian and ambassador for the National Film Board of Canada - Jacques Drouin , will be attending LIAF. Jacques will present a masterclass in the unique technique of pinscreen animation and be bringing over a very special session of some of the National Film Board of Canada's greatest films. Drouin came to the NFB in 1973 and developed a fascination for the painstakingly slow and meticulous beauty that could only be made with using a pinscreen for animation. His second and most well-known film ' Mindscape ', made in 1976 (and screening at LIAF in the best of the NFB session) has won 18 awards at international festivals and he has completed 9 others since. Jacques Drouin's visit has been made possible by the generosity of the Canadian High Commission and the Quebecois Institute for Cultural Affairs.

• Ryan: The whole picture - Ryan , (Chris Landreth), the winner of the 2005 Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film, chronicles the rise and fall of maverick Canadian filmmaker, Ryan Larkin. Once described as the "Frank Zappa of animation", Larkin made four groundbreaking films for the National Film Board of Canada, including the Oscar nominated short ' Walking' (1969), before drifting into cocaine and alcohol dependency and disappearing from public view to become a homeless man panhandling for change on the streets of Montreal for more than 20 years. An intriguing hybrid of animation and first-person interviews (including dialogue culled from over 20 hours of conversation with Larkin himself), ' Ryan' was created using the pioneering Maya software. ' Ryan ' will screen as the centrepiece of Ryan: The Whole Picture , a special LIAF programme that will include two of Ryan Larkin's films and ' Altered Ego's' , the London premiere of a fascinating documentary that delves deeper into the curious tale of Ryan's descent and explores the complex and utterly fascinating relationship that developed between Chris Landreth and Ryan Larkin.

• UK premiere of the new animated feature 'Frank and Wendy' - The latest and wildest feature from Estonia 's acclaimed Eeesti joonisfilm studio. This film was made by a who's who of Estonia 's greatest animators - co-directed and scripted by Priit Parn, Kaspar Jancis, Ulo Pikkov and Priit Tender. Featuring two American secret agents - Frank and Wendy - who are sent to the world's most dangerous place, Estonia , in order to save it from the axis of evil.

• Digital Abstracte: The abstract space - Digital animation means different things to different people. As well as describing the tools an animator can adopt, it can also describe a particular look, rhythm or feel of a particular piece of moving image artwork. The depiction of human characters continues to challenge digital animators, but, in many ways, the most significant triumphs of this artform are the bold, imaginative ways that new rules are being written to depict space, environments and the relationships objects have with eachother. This programme is one glimpse into digital space and features the best German, British, French and Austrian examples of the form.

• A two-programme selection of films from former Eastern Bloc countries - Following on from the incredible response to last year's Estonian Panorama, LIAF has compiled a two program panorama of films from countries in the region including Georgia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and, of course, Estonia . At this turning point in history, we wanted to pay tribute to the stunning collection of animated film that has been created in these countries which find themselves part of a new frontier. As these people's gazes turn westwards, the political upheavals remind us that they possess incredibly rich and unique creative cultures that - at the very least - will be altered dramatically by the social changes we are witnessing.

• Animated Documentary showcase - After the success of last years programme, LIAF brings back the series in 2005 with a diverse offering ranging from recreation of the Parthenon to the personal tales of people suffering from mental illness to a series of interviews with people who firmly believe they have been abducted by aliens.

• International Panorama programme - One of the most anticipated parts of LIAF, the International Panorama competitive showcase (this year a whopping 9 sessions!) features the crème de la crème of the best animation from around the world, including many UK and London premieres.

• British Panorama programme - Featuring an eclectic mix of remarkable British animation from the past year , the programme includes the most up-to-date snapshot of all that is great about British animation and shows off what our most talented animators have been getting up to.

• The best of this year's student animation - The vibrancy and rule breaking abandon of student animation bursts onto the big screen for this two programme 'festival-within-a-festival', featuring 30 films from the best animation and film-schools around the world.

• Other events: Kids Animation - A special screening will be devoted to kids animation on the Saturday morning during the festival at South-West London's favourite kids/family club at the Clapham Picturehouse, and a special retrospective session of the best of the last 10 years of the British Animation Awards (as curated by animation goddess Jayne Pilling) PLUS also returning will be the ever- popular Best Of The Festival where we re-run the highlights of the festival as chosen by the judges and audience members and bring the festival to a close in style.