After last year’s 20^th Anniversary celebration, I didn’t think that the 2014 edition of the International Trickfilm Festival in Stuttgart, Germany could surpass the 2013 festival but it certainly did.  Even though the festival is one of the most important in the world with over 85,000 visitors this year, it has not lost its warm, hospitable feeling for the guests.  That’s why so many of the world’s best animators are happy to come to ITFS to give a wide range of workshops and presentations.

Chris Landreth is everywhere this year.  I had spent time with him last month at the festival in Tourcoing, France and it was fun to be with him again here.  His wonderful film Subconscious Password was in competition and he also presented a program, screening of his films and talking about them.  Subconscious Password is a mind-bending romp and extremely funny until you think about how often you are confronted by someone who obviously knows you and you have no idea who they are.

 

I was very happy to get to talk to Michelle and Uri Kranot.  Michelle was on the Cartoon for Kids jury while Uri served on the Young Animation jury.  They also presented their newest film Hollow Land, an excellent cutout and mixed medium film which was screened as part of the first competition program.  The film deals with feelings of displacement and being a stranger in a strange land that many immigrants feel when they move to another country in search of a better life.  Hollow Land was short listed for the Oscars in 2013 and has won numerous awards at festivals worldwide.

They were very busy but they took time out to sit down with me and tell me about The Hollow Land Experience.  The talented couple have created an audience inter-active installation to “explore the possibilities and expel the boundaries between theatre and animation, fiction and realism, transforming a screen based experience into a physical one”.  Participants are given masks and costumes representing the two characters in the film as they enter the “animated rooms” which are created by multi-angled projections which change rapidly as the masked participants explore them.  The blind “explorers” do not realize that there is one actor among them who leads them through the experience and hands them props such as toilet plungers to put on their heads.  There is also an audience watching all of the activity much like old time residents of a city would watch newcomers. The installation was conceived at the Open Workshop in Viborg where they are both artists-in-residence.  They said that it is expensive to install but they hope to be able to present it at animation festivals and in museums.  You can see a small excerpt about the project on their website: http://Hollowlandfilm.wordpress.com

Max Howard always gives entertaining workshops that are packed full of information on how to succinctly create and pitch a story.  He has created and run studios for Disney worldwide and presided over Warner Brothers Feature Animation.  Max is currently producing a series of animated feature films, and he definitely knows what he is talking about.  Max was also on the feature film jury.

Although I have been a long-time admirer of animator Jannik Hastrup this was my first opportunity to meet the man considered to be the most successful animator in Denmark.  For over 5 decades his work has won numerous awards.  Beginning with his 1967 television series “Cirkeline” his work has alternately delighted and upset people.  In the 1970’s his films became much more political and controversial with the nine part series The History Book, an animated documentation and Marxist rewriting of history.  After several successful feature length animation films with his production company, Tegnefilm, Hastrup is revisiting Cirkeline to make a feature length animation titled Cirkeline – Big City Mice.  Jannik served on the feature film jury at the festival.

There was no question that the talented and inventive Estonian animator Rao Heidmets’ workshop How to Make Your Story Crazy Enough would be fun.  Anyone who has seen Rao’s films such as  Inherent Obligations which was awarded the 2009 Grand Prix at the Ottawa International Animation Festival knows that Rao is the perfect person to show animators how to channel their inner crazy self and transfer it to the screen.  Workshop participants were instructed to bring paper and pencils and be ready to draw.

In a separate program Rao presented seven of his films including his 1988 The Theatre Papa Carlo which he filmed with fellow Estonian Priit Parn.  Using life sized puppets the two renowned animators explored the collapse of a totalitarian system and the path to freedom.  The pair won the Grand Prix at the Cinanima International Film Festival in Espinho, Portugal and a nomination for the Palm D’ Or in Cannes.

Rao was on the Short Film Competition Jury along with the delightfully droll London born Paul Bush.  Paul’s films are always fascinating and very different from each other.  He uses such a wide variety of techniques and styles as his two programs at the festival demonstrated.   The first program was a selection of his short films. From the 1995 Furniture Poetry which has been called “an object lesson in the fecundity of things” to the outrageously funny Busby Berkeley’s Tribute To Mae West, Paul’s very fitting sexually explicit tribute to the sex goddess there was something to delight and/or offend everyone.  Mae would have loved her tribute!

The following day we got to see Paul’s recently completed first feature film Babeldom.  The 81 minute film is described as a hallucinatory portrait of a futuristic city, a science fiction documentary assembled from film shot in modern cities around the world combined with the most recent research in science, technology, and architecture.

Each year the festival invites a noted animator to select a series of films for the Best of Animation screenings.  This year Israeli animator and historian Tsvika Oren curated 4 programs of his favorite films.  The 44 films Tsvika selected contained many gems.  With entries ranging from Norwegian animator Pjotr Sapegin’s 1999 Snails to the 2011 multi-award winning Oh Willy by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, it was possible to see many great moments of short animation history over 4 days.  The only 2 caveats placed on Tsvika’s selection was that the films could not have been previously shown in a Stuttgart “best of” program, and that the festival could locate a good print of the film.

The International Competition is still the focal point of the festival.  I made it a point to see of all 5 competition screenings and was rewarded with excellent films ranging from very serious to hilarious.  For the past several years the festival has interspersed the first competition program among speeches by local dignitaries at the Opening Night ceremony.  This is a wonderful idea because it insures that the local guests will not just speak and run as so often happens at festival opening ceremonies.  They actually  see some of the excellent films in competition.

The program was definitely not packed full of amusing 1 minute films.  Along with Michelle and Uri Kranot’s Hollow Land French animator Augusto Zanovello’s Women’s Letter’s took us to the battle fields of WWI.  Tribute is being paid all over Europe and Great Britain to soldiers who lost their lives in terrible conflict on this 100^th anniversary year, and the film is a fitting statement of the horrors of war.

The most hard-hitting of all of the opening night films was I Love Hooligans.  Dutch film maker Jan-Dirk Bouw used the animated doc format to take the viewer into the world of a homosexual football hooligan.  The film is a true story of a young man who lives for football (soccer for those in the United States) and his club while keeping his sexual orientation a well-kept secret from his mates.  As I listened to the disguised voice of the young man tell his story, the anguish that he feels living in two such opposite worlds is obvious.  The film doesn’t give any answers as to how the young man will ever come to terms with the world he lives in with his club mates who he has grown up with and his desire to have a good relationship with another mate.  His final plea to “die in the arms of his loved one” left me with a lot to think about.  Opening night concluded with Chris Landreth Subconscious Password. 

Long-time opening night master of ceremony Markus Brock did an excellent job of moving the program along and not letting anyone speak too long.  He has a lot of experience - when he is not presiding over the festival’s opening and closing night ceremonies he is a presenter on German television.

The remaining 4 Short Film Competition programs also contained outstanding films.  Three young directors, Anna Benner, Pia Borg, and Gemma Burditt combined their talents to pose the question when one person’s reality is in a different dimension from another person, can these two realities ever meet?  In Through the Hawthorn the trio of directors used 3 split screens and three characters to show a psychiatric session from the point of view of a psychiatrist, a young schizophrenic patient, and his mother.  Each of the three directors took a different character and worked separately in their own studio but the finished film came together perfectly.  The jury agreed with me and awarded Through the Hawthorn the Grand Prix proving that anima docs are the perfect medium to tell a story that would be too painful to watch in a live action film for both the audience and the subjects.

Russian animator Svetlana Filippova has created some of my favorite films such as Where Dogs Go to Die and Three Love Stories both previously screened at Stuttgart festivals.  Her latest film Brut is equally engaging.   In her new film the Nazi’s rise to power is seen through the eyes of Brutus, a gentle and well loved dog.  When the Nazis decree that no Jew can own a pet, Brutus’s mistress is forced to turn him into a collection center.  Brutus is forced to face the harsh realities of a changing world and concludes that “it’s a pity that we dogs cannot talk about anything to people, otherwise we would tell them to recognize the smell of good and evil”.  Svetlana has adapted her hand drawn film from a story by Ludvik Askenazy titled Brutus.

The competition programs were not just made up of serious films.  There were plenty of very funny films also.  Daniel Moshel must have a very active imagination and a full You Tube life to have created MeTube:  August Sings Carmen “Habanera”.  The 4 minute film is a very funny homage to the thousands of You Tube users and video bloggers, gifted and not so gifted alike, who tirelessly self-promote on the internet.  This tribute-to-bad-taste version of Bizet’s Habanera from Carmen was created as a music video for Swiss opera tenor August Schram and won the 2013 German Video award in the EPIC category.  The film also screened at Sundance this year.  You can watch itat: www.youtube.com/watch?V=us-tFxVchyg

With so much happening at the festival, committing a big block of time to see a feature film can be a gamble but I am very glad that I saw Giovanni’s Island by Japanese animator Mizuho Nishikubo.  Based on a true story, the film takes place after WW II on the tiny Japanese island of Shikotan which is occupied by the Soviet Union.  Although it was forbidden for the Japanese families to have anything to do with the Russian families stationed on the island a young Russian girl and a Japanese boy become close friends.

The story of the occupation of the island, the eventual deportation of the Japanese residents to a Russian internment camp, and the many trials the internees faced before finally returning to Japan proper are seen through the eyes of two young brothers, Giovanni and Campanello  and their young Russian friend Tanya.  The hand drawn film is not only a historical drama but a touching story of people caught up in the aftermath of war.

With over 200 individual events and 1,000 films to choose from, making decisions about what to see and do is difficult and you are always going to miss something but I made sure not to miss Studio Filmbilder’s 25^th Anniversary party.  Founder Thomas Meyer Hermann told the story of the renowned Stuttgart animation studio from its beginning to the present with a peak into the future using photos of many of the well-known animators who have worked at Studio Filmbilder.  He also treated us to excerpts of commercial and artistic projects that have won the studio more than 130 festival prizes world-wide.

As a finale, Thomas, the real life Tom of the studio’s acclaimed 52 part television series Tom and the Slice of Bread With Strawberry Jam and Honey, called all past and present people who have contributed to the innovative studio’s success to the stage and it was quite an impressive group.  Eight other studios from around the world including Laika from Portland, Oregon and SE-MA-FOR in Lodz, Poland also gave presentations and showcased their recent projects.

Each year an important part of the festival is the school presentations.  Along with German universities, representatives from as far away as the Tokyo University of the Arts and Mishar For Art College in Tel Aviv, gave presentations about the educational opportunities at the schools and screened examples of their student’s work.

Priit Parn travelled from Tallinn, Estonia to present the Estonian Academy of Arts which is celebrating 100 years of uninterrupted teaching this year.  The Academy boasts some of the biggest names in Estonian animation on its faculty such as Priit Parn, Olga Parn and Ulo Pikkov and continues to turn out students who go on to make their mark as professional animators.

After my memorable trip to Beirut last year to visit the Beirut Animated Festival I was delighted to learn that the festival would give a presentation of animation in Beirut and the Arab world.  Even though this region produces some excellent animated films they are seldom seen at festivals in Europe.  I was also looking forward to catching up on news from Beirut with festival director Sarra Maali who was presenting the program.  Unfortunately Sarra could not get a visa in time to be in Stuttgart.  Her insights would have added a lot to the program of short films that were shown.

In the last few years the Animation Co-production Forum has become an important resource for young directors, animators, and producers from the Arab world to connect with German studios to encourage co-productions.  The forum offers workshops and lectures followed by a pitching contest.  The winner of the pitching contest is automatically nominated for the film prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung  Foundation for International co-production.

For a break from “serious” film viewing Friday night was Animation Horror Night.  Curator Mihai Mitrica put together 2 programs packed with zombies, a teddy bear serial killer and Canis directed by Marc Riba and Anna Sollanas.  The Spanish duo have a knack for telling very chilling stories and are real masters of puppet horror animation.  Their 2010 film The Twin Girls of Sunset Beach, which was based on a true story, gives me shivers every time I think about it. a Canis, also screened in the competition, is the stuff nightmares are made of.  I am curious to know if this story about a  menacing pack of stray dogs is based on a true event.

Along with watching animation in the screening rooms the festival offered many other special attractions aimed at the local community.  Every year the large central park is transformed into a beer garden, screening arena, and  for the second time a gaming area.  The massive LED cinema screen is the focal point of the area.  In bright sunshine the screen looks as clear and sharp as it does at night.  All afternoon the festival ran free programs of short films from past festivals to a large crowd ranging from office workers taking a lunch break to entire families enjoying the animation in the beautiful Spring sunshine.  At night the big screen lit up with a free feature film designed for the entire family.  Every evening the park was packed full with local families sitting on blankets to watch recent films such as Monsters University and The Smurf Movie.  For those who didn’t bring their own picnic a wide variety of delicious food and beer were available in the beer garden.

After its successful premier at the festival last year, the Let’s Play game zone in the festival park returned to offer the opportunity for gamers of all ages and levels of experience to try their hand at numerous indie games and to attend a variety of workshops.  This year the game zone expanded to include educational talks and Gamestorm’s Battle of the Bands.  Everyone was welcome to register as a rock band, choose their rock outfits, and play the Xbox game Rockband on stage at the Club Zentral.  The object was to beat the high score and win over the adoration of the audience and jury.  You could watch 7 graffiti artists, 4 from Stuttgart and 3 internationals spray paint live on a 6x6x6 meters cube in the game zone also.

After last year’s move to the Mercedes-Benz Museum the majority of the Tricks for Kids screenings returned to the downtown screening rooms along with the Cartoons for Teens and Young Animation Programs.  Tricks for Kids 4 programs offered a wide variety of films ranging from last year’s Academy Award winning film Mr. Hublot by Alexandre Espigares and Laurent Witz to the delightful My Mum is an Airplane animated by Yulia Aronova from Russia.  At the Cartoons for Teens 3 programs you could watch a musical guidefor children facing the undead in Pedro Santasmarinas’ Zombies4Kids . 

Along with the Tricks for Kids screenings there were workshops in several different locations.  At the Mercedes Benz Museums young animators 6 years old and up could work under the direction of a professional animator to tell their own stories and 8 year olds worked with animators to make their own short animations using various techniques such as cut out animation, sand or clay.

In the zoological gardens, zoo pedagogue Saline Ratzel told funny animal stories that youngsters could bring to life with the assistance of a mobile animation team using scissors, paper, and clay to create a stop motion film.

The Children’s Museum featured an interactive exhibit of Russian Fairy Tales.  Youngsters acting as reporters took pictures and used them to make an animated film report on what they saw that was shown in the Metropol Kino.

I like to watch programs of student animation because they frequently have very original ideas.  University is also the only time many of them will ever be free to do whatever they want without a client to please or short deadlines pressing down on them.  The four Programs of Young Animation I saw at the festival proved that the future of animation is assured by the present crop of animation students.  Luiz Stockler took the Lotte Reinger Promotion Award home to Great Britain for Home, which she made at the Royal College of Art.

IOA, thestory of a vowel reciting machine who leads a miserable existence at the hands of a despotic singing teacher, is a clever puppet animation made at the Hochschule in Luzern, Switzerland by Gabriel Mohring.  Anyone who has ever been to a dog show will have to laugh at Oh My Dog!    Chloe Alliez’s funny tail (pardon the pun) of best of breed winners contending to be named top dog was made at  the Ecole nationale superieure des arts visuels de La Cambre, Belgium.

Nik and I attended the German Animation Screenplay Awards which took place at the beautiful White Hall of the New Castle.  The 2,500 Euro Screenplay award was given to Late Igal under der Wasserstein (Lotte Hedgehog and the Water Stone) written by Andrea Deppert and Martin Behnke.  A highlight of the ceremony was the voice over actor and audio book narrator Anna Thalbach who read excerpts from the nominated screen plays.

At the same ceremony the award for the Best Animated Children’s Series was given to Mic Graves for The Amazing World of Gumball – The Hero.  The jury said that they choose that film” because of its highly original visual style, its wacky, energetic comedic timing and its heart-warming story that appeals to both kids and adults”.  A reception followed the ceremony which gave me a chance to really appreciate the beautiful New Castle which was used as a festival venue for the first time this year.  The awards event opened the 2 day Animation Production Days, a business platform for the international animation industry.

Anna Thalbach was also a nominee for the German Voice Actor Award.  The award for the best original voice actor /dubbing artist in an animated feature was awarded on the next evening to Josefine Preub for her performance as Mary Kay in Epic.

Each afternoon the Animator’s Talks gave the audience the opportunity to hear the short film animators from the previous day’s competition screening talk about their films and ask questions.  The sessions hosted by animator and actress Anna Henckel-Donnersmarch are always informative with the film makers revealing behind the scenes stories about their films.  The final two days of chats were hosted by the witty and charming children’s book author Theo De Marcousin whose credits include Oscar y Fiu which he collaborated on with noted Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit.  De Wit was awarded the Oscar, a BAFTA, and the Annecy Grand Prix along with many other prestigious awards in 2000 for his classic short animation Father and Daughter.

There was plenty of time to socialize and catch up with friends at the numerous receptions and parties.  One of the lovely features of the Trickfilm Festival is that all festival guests, professionals and students alike, are invited to all of the parties.  On two evenings festival Managing Director Dittmar Lumpp arranged for Nik to play with students from the jazz program at the music academy, which added to the party atmosphere.  Nik was delighted with the high quality of the students’ playing and looks forward to doing it again next year.

The festival was so packed with film and events that the six days flew by.  All too soon the closing night award ceremony and party rolled around.  A complete list of all of the winning films is at the end of the article. If I could only attend one major festival a year it would be the Stuttgart International Trickfilm Festival not only because of the quality and quantity of the programs but also for the friendly, welcoming atmosphere the entire festival staff create.

The list of thank-you’s Nik and I want to give to the festival is endless but a very special thank you goes out to the tireless Senior Programmer and dear friend Andrea Bauer and her wonderful staff for their efforts to make our visit to the festival so enjoyable every year.  Also, we must thank Nora Hieronymus and Madeleine Jeschke in the press office who answered my endless questions and made my job so easy.  Once again this year Managing Directors Ulrich Wegenast and  Dittmar Lumpp out did themselves to create a wonderful festival.  The 2015 edition of the festival will be held from the 5^th through the 10^th of May.  You can read more about the festival and see a short film documenting each day of the festival in pictures at: www.ITFS.de

Awardees ITFS 2014