Famous Chinese Animation great contributor, animation educator, one of the founders of China Animation Association Zhang Songlin passed away at the age of 80, due to a burst brain infraction, at 2:45pm on May 8th, 2012.

Zhang Songlin, was born in Shanghai in 1932, became known for such classics as “The Brainless and The Unhappy” and Chinese traditional ink-painting cartoon “A Little Swallow” in the 1960s.

The artist participated in the creation of 200 episodes of various Chinese cartoons and won awards domestically and abroad. He was a director, scriptwriter, and art director with the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. In 1985, he helped to found China Animation Association, where he remained an honorary president.

The cock crows at midnight

Vagrant Life of Sanmao

Panda Jingjing

Zhang also contributed to cartoon chapters for various Chinese dictionary tomes such as “Encyclopedia of China,” “Motion Picture Art Dictionary” and “China Film Yearbook.”

Zhang Songllin’s Farewell ceremony will be held at 9:30 on May 14, 2012 at Galaxy Hall of Longhua Funeral Homes ( Phone Number:962840). Please send e-mail messages of condolence to this address: songlin@chinanim.com.

The Brainless and The Unhappy-3The Brainless and The Unhappy-2The Brainless and The Unhappy-1

The International Animation Day (IAD) is an inevitable event in the animation field, helps to promote the art of animation around the 28th of October supported and developed by a wide network of cultural and cinematic organisations in about forty countries.
Asifa groups but also festivals and cultural structures are invited to screen animated films, organise workshops, exhibit artwork and stills, and provide technical demonstrations.
Each year, the Asifa also calls upon a famous director to create the visual of the IAD. This visual is then adapted for each country in order to guarantee a worldwide visibility of the event.
Previous editions involved the work of directors such as Iouri Tcherenkov, Paul Driessen, Nourredin Zarrinkelk, Abi Feijo, Michel Ocelot, Nina Paley, Raoul Servais, and Ihab Shaker in 2011.

Read the Full Report.

The congress will take place in Beijing, April18 to 23, 2012. At least 140 delegates from film archives around the world will attend the congress.

FIAF members include over 150 archives in over 77 countries which collect, restore, and exhibit films and cinema documentation spanning the entire history of film.

http://www.fiafnet.org/uk/

FIAF online bulletin: http://www.fiafnet.org/pdf/FBO2/FBO2_EN.pdf

“Animation around the World” talks will focus on the three following themes: acquisition, preservation & restoration, and access.

Collections

Presentation themes: Description of a film or non-film (scripts, drawings, models, cels…) collection, relating to a director, a production company, a genre or an animation technique, with an emphasis on their origin, their originality, their distinctive features…

Round table :

Problems specific to animated film collections (handling, cataloguing, storage, etc).

Chair (tbc) : La Cinémathèque québécoise.Symposium

Acquisition, Preservation, Restoration

Presentation themes: preservation of original materials (films, cels, designs…); identification of the deterioration of specific supports or techniques; characteristics of the restoration of a particular film, technique, genre, or production process…

Round table :

How to preserve and restore animation? Are there specific storage conditions for animated films ? Should we operate a selection?

Chair (tbc) : Fu Hongxing (Director of the China Film Archive)

Access/Circulation

Presentation themes: Dissemination of a collection (film and non-film) and of specific works and animation techniques through various media (film, digital, VOD, internet, books, scientific and educational projects, etc).

Round table :

How to promote an animation collection or a specific animated film ? In what circumstances have such materials have ended up in the collections of film archives ? What is their place in film history? What is their scientific and/or cultural importance? How to catalogue animated films?

Call for Entry : SICAF 2012 July 18(Wed) ~ 22(Sun),

Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF) is calling for entries.

This year, SICAF Animated Film Festival is celebrating its 16^th edition, receiving 1500 animated works from the world every year and presenting the up-and coming trend of world animation from across the Asia, Europe, America and more. SICAF 2012 is waiting for your participation.

▪ Qualification for Entry

Any frame by frame or computer assisted animation video or film made for the cinema, television and/or the internet may be entered. Only works completed after January, 2010 and never previously entered for selection at SICAF can be taken into consideration.

▪ Entry Deadline

March 30, (Fri.) 2012

▪ Competition Category

1)      Feature Films : Films produced for the purpose of theatrical release

2)      Short Films : Within 30 minutes in length

- Professional Films

- School and Graduation Films

3)     TV Films : Films made for the purpose of television broadcast

- TV Series

- TV Specials

4) Commissioned Films

- Advertising or promotional Films

- Educational, scientific, or industrial films

- Video clip (music, game, etc.)

▪ Materials Required for Entry

- Entry Form (including the director’s biography and filmography,)

- Preiview DVD for selection

- 3 Slides or digital color images of major scenes(The shortest side of min. 6cm in 300 dpi)

- 1 or more photos of the directon(min. 6cm×8cm, 300 dpi)

- Text of dialogue and/or commentary in original language and Enlgish.

▪ Related information (to download Entry Form & Competition Regulations)

http://www.sicaf.org/2012/news_board/notice_view.jsp?gbn=KR_NOTICE&seq=564&sch_sel=&sch_txt=&nowPage=1&sch_sub_gbn=

▪ Contact Information

SICAF Organizing Committee

B-103 Seoul Animation Center,

8-145 Yejang-Dong, Jung-Gu, Seoul 100-250, KOREA

Tel : +82-2-3455-8437 Fax : +82-2-3455-8422

Official Website : http : //www.sicaf.org

3^rd VAFI – International Children and Youth Animation Film Festival Varaždin

From April 12 – 15, 2012 in Varaždin, Croatia, there will be held 3^rd VAFI – International Children and Youth Animation Film Festival. VAFI is a film festival for animated films made by children or youth under 18 years.

This years VAFI parner is Japan and a special guest of VAFI 3 is Sayoko Kinoshita, Vice President of ASIFA World and Director of International Animation Festival Hiroshima. From Japan is also coming Dino Sato and Maya Yonesho, animators. They will hold an animation and drawing  workshops.  On VAFI we will also see films from our guests, two feature films from Miyazaki and a historical overview of Japanese animation.

Sayoko Kinoshita is the Jury President and other Jury members are Miomir Rajčević and Simon Bogojević Narath. Selectors are Bajko Hromalić and Marko Meštrović, both ASIFA Croatia members.

VAFI has three categories divided by age of authors. In that way awards could be given more fairly. Every category has its name – MINI – for children under 10 years, MIDI – for children from 11 – 14 years and MAXI – for youth from 15 – 18 years. On January 20, 2012 submissions for VAFI 3 were closed. A total of 568 minutes arrived from 54 clubs, which makes 183 films from 25 countries.

VAFI will award five prizes per category, from which one will be the first prize and the other four will be equal second prizes. The prize is the statue and diploma for the first places and diploma for the second places.

Every year VAFI will be in partnership with one school from Varaždin. Children from that school will be hosts to our national and international guests. In that way VAFI wants to initiate tolerance, friendship and learning about other cultures among young people.

The winning films of VAFI 3 will be presented on 3rd Internationa Bienalle for Children in Emirates and in Zagreb, in Cinema Tuškanac.

Short films – Animation :

15 min Oscar winner “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” is a hybrid short film/interactive book and iPad app by author and illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg, Moonbot Studios, 2011. http://vimeo.com/35404908

Features:

Rango. http://oscar.go.com/nominees/animated-feature-film/rango Gore Verbinski.

VFX: Rob Legato (Titanic ‘97), Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning – “Hugo”.  http://oscar.go.com/nominees/visual-effects/hugo

HUGO trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTfCw1×98A

Short films – Animation other nominees:

“Dimanche/Sunday” Patrick Doyon. NFB. http://www.nfb.ca/film/dimanche

• This film was also a winner of the ASIFA-Colorado Best Animated Short at Starz Denver Film Festival 2011

“La Luna” Enrico Casarosa. Pixar.

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=263KpG16c30&feature=related

Casarosa’s blog: http://enricocasarosa.com/wordpress.1/

“A Morning Stroll” Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe. Studio AKA.

http://studioaka.squarespace.com/

Oscar diary: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17064626

“Wild Life” Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby. NFB.

AWN’s Dan Sarto interview: http://www.awn.com/articles/people/oscar-2012-wendy-tilby-and-amanda-forbis-talk-wild-life

Other feature nominees:

“A Cat in Paris” Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli. 70’. Folimage 2010.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7e07c52VWg

“Chico & Rita” Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal. 94’. Spain/UK. 2010.

Trailer: http://www.break.com/movie-trailers/chico-and-rita-trailer

“Kung Fu Panda 2″ Jennifer Yuh Nelson. 91’. DreamWorks. 2011.

Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302011/

“Puss in Boots” Chris Miller. 90’. DreamWorks. 2011.

Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448694/

Asifa Hollywood’s 39^th annual Annie Awards ceremony took place in UCLA on February 4, 2012. http://annieawards.org/ It had the largest audience, with over 12,000 viewers watcing it online.

For the first time all Asifa int’l members were invited to vote for the best feature.

Among the winners in the Annies 28 categories:

Best feature: Gore Verbinski’s “Rango”.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH8xW8mF-AI&feature=relmfu

Best short: Adam and Dog – Minkyu Lee. Trailer: http://vimeo.com/34849443

Animated TV commercial: Twinings “Sea”. http://www.psyop.tv/twinings-sea/

Winsor McCay Award : Walt Peregoy (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tag/walt-peregoy),

Borge Ring (1984 “Anna & Bella”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0qnXOzxQgA,  http://lambiek.net/artists/r/ring_borge.htm).

Ronald Searle (http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/;  Design for David Hilberman’s 1957 “Energetically Yours”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy0oE4vMk-k).

June Foray Award: Art Leonardi (http://www.animationmagazine.net/top-stories/dont-toot-that-horn-leonardi-and-the-art-of-claiming-credits/).

For a full list of nominees and winners see http://minglemediatvnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/rango-wins-best-animated-picture-at-the-39th-annie-awards/

Børge and Joanika are safe and cared for, but they have reportedly lost EVERYTHING. Art, memories, and even the Oscar went up in flames. To aid them in recovering from this devastating loss, a website has been set up to collect donations — please visit http://help.borgering.com/ for more information on how you can help.

Børge is recipient of the Winsor McKay Award, one of the highest honors given to an individual in animation, at the Annies on February 4. As had been previously planned, his daughter, Anne-Mieke, received the award in Børge’s name.

To write Borge go to http://www.borgering.com