Convergence India - 7-9 March 2018

India Gaming Show - Jan 2018

Free Download: Special Annecy Edition of Animation World Magazine

Special print edition distributed at Annecy 2017 celebrates a year’s worth of creative excellence since industry professionals last gathered in France at the world’s largest and most prestigious film festival dedicated to the art of animation.

Coinciding with today’s launch of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, now underway in France through June 17, the Animation World Network editorial team is delighted to unveil a special print edition of Animation World Magazine. This special print edition, which is being distributed to attendees at Annecy 2017, celebrates a year’s worth of creative excellence since industry professionals last gathered in France at the annual home of the world’s largest and most prestigious film festival dedicated to the art of animation.
Expertly shepherded and curated by the festival’s creative director, Marcel Jean, working alongside MIFA market director Mickael Marin, Annecy continues to innovate, each year expanding its scope and vision to host a truly international celebration of everything animated in this uniquely beautiful lakeside town.
From Pixar’s Cars 3 to DreamWorks Animation’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, animated features are taking center stage at Annecy, and our special festival edition of Animation World Magazine has them all. Our cover story on Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me 3 discusses the evolution of the blockbuster franchise and its Minions spinoff with directors Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, and producers Janet Healy and Chris Meledandri. We also talk to director Michael Dudok de Wit about his feature film debut, the Oscar-nominated The Red Turtle, produced with Studio Ghibli, which premiered at Annecy last year. And director Claude Barras provides a wealth of interesting background on his Oscar-nominated My Life as a Zucchini.

This year’s guest country is China, whose animation industry continues to grow in size, technological sophistication and storytelling prowess. Annecy’s celebration of China centers around a major month-long art exhibition presented at the Château d’Annecy Musée lacs et montagnes, with classic film materials from the famed Shanghai Animation Film Studio on display alongside a number of installations by artists and filmmakers, including Sun Xun, Haiyang Wang, Wu Chao and Weilun Xia, who are working at the frontiers of contemporary art and animation. The tribute to China also includes a dozen retrospective programs, including a screening of China’s first animated feature Princess Iron Fan (1941), by brothers Laiming and Guchan Wan; three programs of historical short films; retrospectives of the work of Sun Xun, Xu An and Xi Chen; a program of short films from contemporary artists; and the best shorts from Chinese schools.
The past 12 months have seen a record number of high-quality animated shorts by filmmakers from around the globe, and we’ve spotlighted three of them here: U.K. director Daisy Jacobs’ The Full Story, the follow-up to her Oscar-nominated The Bigger Picture; Croatian animator Špela Čadež’s stop-motion Nighthawk, produced by Bonobostudio; and Canadian animator Steven Woloshen’s latest project, Casino.
We also take a look at the rise of independent animation distributor GKIDS, the return of Genndy Tartakovsky’s gorgeously animated Samurai Jack, Guillermo del Toro’s award-winning series for Netflix, Trollhunters, Amazon’s stop-motion preschool series Tumble Leaf, and more.
Grab a tight-fitting café chair, order a double espresso, and enjoy AWN.com’s celebration of all things Annecy and the art, craft and industry of animation. Download your free digital copy of the June 2017 Special Print Edition of Animation World Magazine today!

'Coco's Night: Pixar Feature Dominates Annies with 11 Wins

‘The Breadwinner’ takes indie feature honor; ‘Disney Mickey Mouse’ and ‘Samurai Jack’ each score three awards in TV categories.

Pixar's 'Coco' won 11 categories including best animated feature at the 45 annual Annie Awards, held Feb. 3 at UCLA's Royce Hall.

LOS ANGELES -- Pixar was the big winner at this year’s 45th Annie Awards as Coco won Best Animated Feature, and garnered top honors across 11 categories in a ceremony held Feb. 3 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Also winning top awards were the independent feature The Breadwinner; short film Dear Basketball; Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears; and the Fox live-action feature War For The Planet of The Apes.
Adult Swim’s Samurai Jack and Disney Mickey Mouse won three awards each in the individual achievement categories for television.
The evening was dedicated to the late June Foray, the legendary voice actress who was responsible for founding the Annies 45 years ago. "This year, we paid tribute to our beloved June Foray, who always delighted in seeing how the event she founded continued to grow year after year. This year was no exception,” said Frank Gladstone, Annie Awards executive producer. “June would have enjoyed the increasing numbers, but more important to her, and to us, has always been seeing the proof, inherent in the Annies, that the capability of people, world-wide, to create animated films has also continued to diversify and increase.”           
Presenters for the evening included actress Wendie Malick; Coco’s Anthony Gonzalez; director Nora Twomey and actress Saara Chaudry from The Breadwinner; Disney voice talent Russi Taylor; SpongeBob himself, Tom Kenny; animators Mark Henn and Floyd Norman, and other industry notables, including Debi Derryberry, and E.G. Daily, along with ASIFA-Hollywood President Jerry Beck, Executive Director Frank Gladstone and animation producer and ASIFA board member, Sue Shakespeare.
Many presenters and attendees wore “Time’s Up” pins distributed by Women in Animation to raise awareness about safety and equity in the workplace.
The Winsor McCay Award for career contributions to the art of animation are being presented to three recipients: British character animator, James Baxter; SpongeBob SquarePants creator, Stephen Hillenburg and the Canadian animation duo, Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. The Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancement that has made a significant impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to TVPaint for its versatile software for 2D animation.
The Special Achievement Award recognizing the unique and significant impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to Studio MDHR Entertainment for its 1930s inspired wonder-game Cuphead; and the June Foray Award for significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to animation historian, Didier Ghez. The Certificate of Merit award was presented to David Nimitz, devoted friend and caretaker of veteran voice actress and ASIFA-Hollywood and Annie Award pioneer, June Foray, who died in July at the age of 99.
The full list of winners:

• Best Animated Feature – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios
• Best Animated Feature-Independent -- The Breadwinner, Cartoon Saloon / Aircraft Pictures / Melusine Productions
• Best Animated Special Production -- Revolting Rhymes, Magic Light Pictures
• Best Animated Short Subject -- Dear Basketball, Glen Keane Productions, Kobe Studios, Believe Entertainment Group
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Commercial – June, Broad Reach Pictures/Chromosphere/Lyft
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production For Preschool Children – Octonauts, “Operation Deep Freeze,” Vampire Squid Productions Limited, a Silvergate Media company, in association with Brown Bag Films
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production For Children -- We Bare Bears, “Panda's Art,” Cartoon Network Animation Studios
• Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production -- Rick and Morty, “Pickle Rick,” Williams Street Productions
• Best Student Film -- Poles Apart, Paloma Baeza
• Animated Effects in an Animated Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Shaun Galinak, Dave Hale, Jason Johnston, Carl Kaphan, Keith Daniel Klohn .
• Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production – Trollhunters, “Homecoming,” DreamWorks Animation Television. Bruno Chiou, Yi-Fan Cho, Kevin Jong , Chun-Jung Chu.
• Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. John Chun Chiu Lee
• Character Animation in a Live Action Production -- War for the Planet of the Apes, Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, River Road Entertainment, 20th Century Fox. Daniel Barrett, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Emile Ghorayeb, Luisma Lavin Peredo, Alessandro Bonora
• Character Animation in a Video Game – Cuphead, StudioMDHR. Hanna Abi-Hanna
• Character Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCVI,” Adult Swim. Craig Kellman 
• Character Design in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Daniel Arriaga, Daniela Strijleva, Greg Dykstra, Alonso Martinez, Zaruhi Galstyan.
• Directing in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!” Walt Disney Television Animation. Dave Wasson, Eddie Trigueros, Alonso Ramirez-Ramo.
• Directing in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina.
• Music in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!” Walt Disney Television Animation. Christopher Willis.
• Music in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Michael Giacchino, Kristin Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Germaine Franco, Adrian Molina
• Production Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCIII,” Adult Swim. Scott Wills.
• Production Design in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Harley Jessup, Danielle Feinberg, Bryn Imagire, Nathaniel McLaughlin, Ernesto Nemesio
• Storyboarding in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “Bee Inspired,” Walt Disney Television Animation. Eddie Trigueros.
• Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Dean Kelly
• Voice Acting in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon. Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel
• Writing in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Rick and Morty, “The Ricklantis Mixup,” Williams Street Productions. Ryan Ridley, Dan Guterman.
• Writing in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Adrian Molina, Matthew Aldrich
• Editorial in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCIII, XCIV, XCIX,”: Adult Swim. Paul Douglas.
• Editorial in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios.

Source: ASIFA-Hollywood

China's CMC Buys Oriental DreamWorks, Relaunches as Pearl Studios

NBCUniversal Will Continue To Partner With Pearl Studio on its 2019 CG comedy-adventure ‘Everest.’

CMC Capital Partners has acquired full ownership of Oriental DreamWorks, which has been relaunched as Pearl Studio.

LOS ANGELES and SHANGHAI -- CMC Capital Partners, previously known as China Media Capital, has taken full ownership of Oriental DreamWorks and relaunched the animation studio as Pearl Studio. With full ownership, CMC expands its commitment to build Pearl Studio into one of the world’s leading creators of high quality animated content for every screen and platform.



“We are enormously grateful to our JV partners and especially NBCUniversal,” said Li Ruigang, Chairman and CEO of CMC. “As Oriental DreamWorks evolves and relaunches as Pearl Studio, we have successfully accomplished the goals we envisioned when we began building this business many years ago. We have a world-class creative and development team and a robust and exciting pipeline of projects we are committed to bringing to screens around the globe. The Pearl Studio team includes veteran artists, writers, filmmakers and executives who have a proven track record of success and they are visionaries and innovators who understand the global dynamics of this exciting business. The animation market could not be stronger right now in China or globally. We believe Pearl Studio is in a very unique and enviable position to be a bold new independent voice in the animation community.”
Pearl Studio will be led by CEO Frank Zhu and Chief Creative Officer Peilin Chou. The senior executive team also includes Head of Studio Dagan Potter, Head of Ancillary Business PC Xu and Head of Operation Cindy Zhou.
“We have tremendous respect for Li Ruigang and CMC, and look forward to many opportunities to work together as they continue to build this business as Pearl Studio,” said Jeff Shell, chairman, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.
NBCUniversal and its DreamWorks Animation will continue to collaborate with Pearl Studio on its 2019 worldwide release of Everest. DreamWorks Animation’s film, television, consumer products and digital gaming businesses will now be part of NBCUniversal’s product offerings in China.

Fox Studios Developing Feature Based on Bob Marley's Music

Fox Developing Feature Based on Bob Marley's Music

Late reggae star’s daughter among the producers on the project, which Kenya Barris is writing and producing.

Polygram Entertainment and Fox Animation are developing an animated feature based on the music of the late reggae legend Bob Marley.

Universal Music Group’s Polygram Entertainment unit and Fox Animation are developing a feature based on the music of late reggae legend Bob Marley.
Kenya Barris, whose credits include Black-ish and Girls Trip, is writing and producing the feature. Also on board as producers are Marley’s daughter Cedella Marley; David Blackman, head of Polygram; and E. Brian Dobbins of Principato Young.
Fox Animation co-presidents Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird announced the project, telling the trade: “We not only have the opportunity to build new relationships for the studio, but we get to tell a story, inspired by the music of Bob Marley, one of the greatest music legends of our time.”

Edinburgh Short Film Festival 2018 - Last date of submission 25th June 2018

Edinburgh Short Film Festival 2018

Edinburgh Short Film Festival -  Submissions Now Open for 2018!
Screening the best in International contemporary short film across 8 nights in Edinburgh each Autumn (& programming for other festivals across the UK & Internationally) the ESFF is now open for submission for short film-makers globally!
ESFF HOME PAGE

Edinburgh Short Film Festival -  Submissions Now Open for 2018!
Screening the best in International contemporary short film across 8 nights in Edinburgh each Autumn (& programming for other festivals across the UK & Internationally,) the ESFF is now open for submission for short film-makers globally!
We're offering cash prizes for Best Film, Best Animation and Best Scottish Film
But that's not all!

This year, we're  also excited to be curating film programmes from submissions for our 2018 partners:
DC Shorts - The US East Coast's largest short film event,
Mecal - the Barcelona International Short Film Festival
Sardinia Film Festival
Fastnet Film Festival
Firenze FilmCorti
Hidden Door
and many others!
Max Length 25 minutes, international films welcomed, all genres eligible.
Open for entries online and via Film Freeway & Withoutabox. Please note, deadline for submissions ends on Monday June 25th 2018
Enter Your Film Here

Dates 

Friday, October 26, 2018 - 9:30am to Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 1:00am

Submission Deadline 

Monday, June 25, 2018 (All day)

Location 

16 Campie Road

Musselburgh

Eastern Scotland

EH21 6QG

United Kingdom

ANIFILM 2018 - Call for Entries

Anifilm, International Festival of Animated Films, Trebon 2018 is announcing CALL FOR ENTRIES!   

The next edition of Anifilm is taking place in Třeboň (Czech Rep.) from May 1^st to 6th, 2018. The festival is open for submissions of animated films, music and abstract videos and independent computer games. If you have not previously competed in Anifilm, do not hesitate to submit your finished creations in one of the following categories of international competition:  
Feature Films

• Feature film for adults
• Feature film for children
• Short Film
• Music Video
• Abstract & Non-narrative Animation
• Independent Computer Games
  
  • Game Design
  • Game for children

For registration and more information, click here.
There are no fees to enter – the deadline for application is January 15, 2018.

Dates 

Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - 8:00am to Sunday, May 6, 2018 - 8:00pm

Submission Deadline 

Sunday, January 15, 2017 - 11:15pm

Location 

NA

NA Trebon

Czech Republic

Anncey International Film Festival - 11 -16th June 2018

Anncey International Film Festival is a competition amongst animated films in various catagories; including feature films, short films, television and advertising, student films and films published online.
The Festival gathers artists, professionals and independent film makers for a unique program celebrating Animation.
Don't miss the International Animation Film Market (Mifa), the animation industry's foremost showcase in terms of co-producing, purchasing, selling, financing and distributing animation content for all broadcasting platforms.
The Mifa, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015, is held in over 4,300 m² of exhibition space and welcomes over 660 international exhibiting companies.

Dates 

Monday, June 11, 2018 - 9:00am to Saturday, June 16, 2018 - 6:00pm

Submission Deadline 

Thursday, February 15, 2018 - 6:00pm

Location 

Various Venues

74013 Annecy

France