KROK SAILS SMOOTHLY THROUGH TROUBLED WATERS

KROK SAILS SMOOTHLY THROUGH TROUBLED WATERS - the KROK International Animated Film Festival took place 29 September to 5 October 2014 along the Volga River, Russia

KROK International Animated Film Festival

29 September to 5 October 2014 on the Volga River, Russia

Each year I look forward to the KROK International Animated Film Festival. KROK is the joint Russian-Ukrainian festival that takes place on a boat with animators from all over the globe. This year given the political situation between Russia and the Ukraine I gave a lot of thought as to whether I should go or not, but in the end I decided that I was going to support the festival and the animators not a government and I’m certainly glad that I did.

The festival was its usual mix of excellent films, great fun, and friends. Even though the cruise was shorter than usual, just seven days, the trip up the mighty Volga, where forests of birch trees dressed in their fall foliage of red and gold graced the banks, was beautiful.

One year the festival is devoted to student, graduation, and first professional films and the next year it is for professional films. 2014 was the student year. Although I think that this has not been one of the strongest years for professional films there have been some very good student works and we had the opportunity to watch outstanding animation in the 11 competition programs.

One of the cleverest student films I saw this year is Wind, Robert Lobel’s graduation film from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Robert said that the film was inspired by a visit that he made to his girlfriend’s architecture class. The lecture was on indigenous living abodes of some of the world’s poorest people and their ability to adapt to their harsh conditions. In Wind the residents of a remote village go about their business, despite the gale force wind, with determination because they have learned to just live with it. The simply drawn characters, absence of music, and the sound of the wind all contribute to the black humor. Robert won a Special Jury Award for the funniest film as well as the audience award.

2014 marks the 100^th anniversary of Finnish animation. Students from the Turku Arts Academy, founded in 1994, continue to create quirky, well -crafted animation that win awards at festivals around the world. The Table Is Set by Turku students Anni Oja, Sini Pietilainen, Taru Riskola, Markus Tervola, and Nuppu Nykyri is a humorous and absurd tale of an 18^th century upper class mistress, her servant, and items that keep mysteriously disappearing as he tries to serve her afternoon tea. The puppets are delightfully crafted, the story original, and the humorous ending is definitely unexpected. The jury awarded it a diploma for “its surprising perspective”.

It is very unusual to have two films made by two students from two different countries that are so similar but it has happened this year and they are both excellent films. Cash Register 9 by Anna Heuninck and Anete Melece’s Kiosk both dealt with disillusioned women who work behind counters. Cash Register 9 was Anna’s graduation film at KASK in Gent, Belgium and Latvian born Anete made her graduation film at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art where she received her MA.

It’s quite a coincidence that both women are named Olga and are overweight cashiers, one in a super market and the other in a kiosk. They both dream of a different life and have an incident occur that interrupts their hum drum existence. Anete’s film is made from digital cut outs while Anna created her Olga as a life sized claymation figure. Cash Register 9 and Kiosk were not only in the same competition category but were screened one after the other in the same program. The jury awarded Kiosk the prize for the outstanding Graduation film. I liked both films very much and would like to have been a fly on the wall during the jury discussion.

One of my favorite things about KROK is that I have the opportunity to see a lot of Russian and Ukrainian animation that is not shown at other festivals along with films from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. I especially love the Russian and Ukrainian keen sense of absurd humor and their ability to bring folk tales to vivid life. Moscow schools VGIK and School Studio SHAR were well represented by students who created beautiful hand drawn and cut out animations. I quite enjoyed VGIK student Natalia Grofpel’s use of cut outs to create Fairy Tale based on a Russian lullaby. The song, about a little bird that comes to sing babies to sleep when their mothers can’t manage to do it by rocking their cradles, is familiar to all mothers and children in Russia and the Ukraine.

In Brave Mother Aleksandra Lukin combines cutout and 2D computer animation to make her first professional film. The 5’30” film is the story of a young mother who is afraid of nothing but rats. When a large rat appears in her apartment demanding that the mother grant him his three wishes before he will leave, she frantically agrees. As the wishes become more and more outrageous the rat grows larger and larger until he is bigger than the mother. His final demand forces the mother to put her fears aside as she realizes that she will do anything to protect her baby from the greedy rat. Brave Mother earned Aleksandra Likina a special jury prize for the Best Film for Children.

One of the things that makes KROK so special is that everyone is together on the boat rather than being spread around a city in different hotels as happens at most festivals. This provides a wonderful opportunity for students to talk informally with the professional animators on board. When not in the screening room or having jury meetings Israeli/German animator Gil Alkabetz and multi-talented director, script writer, animator, and designer Dmitri Vysotskiy from Russia could be found on the top deck enjoying the view or in the comfortable bar at the front of the boat which afforded a beautiful view even in the worst weather. Their fellow jurors, Mauro Carraro from Switzerland whose 2013 Hasta Santiago won numerous awards, Ukrainian director Anatoly Lavrenishyn, and noted Latvian animator Vladimir Leschiov were equally accessible. Each jury member presented a retrospective of their films or a workshop.

Sadly Edward Nazarov and David Cherkassky, the joint Russian and Ukranian Presidents of the festival, were unable to sail with us this year, but Yuriy Norshteyn stepped in to act as Honorary President of KROK 2014. Aleksandr Petrov and his wife Natalia Malacheva were among the Russian animation luminaries on board as was Mikhail Aldashin the artistic director of Soyuzmultfilm Studio and a brilliant animator in his own right.

Among the international guests were Norwegian animator Kine Aune who learned for the first time at KROK that her film Magic Times had won the 2014Ottawa Animation Festival Best Short Animation for Children award. Sayoko Kinoshita, director of the Hiroshima Festival, and Monique Renault whose sensitive drawn animation films have won numerous awards were also aboard.

Tribute was paid to VGIK University in Moscow on the 95^th anniversary of their founding and the 90^th birthday of the department of cinematography which is named for the renowned Soviet film director and screen writer Sergi Gerasimov. The Moscow film school is the oldest film school in the world. To commemorate VGIK’S historic milestone KROK screened a program of films made by recent graduates.

The master class by Yuriy Norshteyn was a good opportunity to hear the master speak about his work but most touching of all was the tribute paid to the renowned animator Frederic Back who passed away in December 2013. Bach became a mentor to Aleksandr Petrov when Petrov was at the National Film Board of Canada working on The Old Man and the Sea. Petrov wrote a very touching remembrance of his good friend in the festival catalogue. The screening included Back’s two Academy Award winning films The Man Who Planted Trees (1987) and Crac (1981).

Adriaan Lockman (Annecy Grand Prix 2002 for Bar Code) lectured on experimental 3D animation in a program titled “How Not to Fall Asleep”. 3D Experimental animation is not always the most interesting work to me but Adriaan was such an entertaining speaker that he definitely kept me awake.

KROK translates as step in Russia referring to the stops we make on the trip up or down the river but to me KROK means fun. This year our river cruiser was named Alexander Radischev, after the author and social critic who was arrested and exiled by Catherine the Great for writing Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The book was a study of the problems in Russia under Catherine’s reign such as serfdom, powers of the nobility, and lack of personal freedom and liberty. This seems like the perfect name for a boat full of rebellious animators.

KROK officially began with the opening ceremony at the beautiful Dom Kino in Moscow with the screening of the highlights of last year’s KROK and welcoming speeches. This was followed by a sumptuous welcome buffet and the first of many parties back on the boat. Whenever the boat docked we had time to explore on shore. This year we headed north from Moscow on the Volga River, which meant a stop in Myshkin which translates as mouse in Russian.

Legend has it that that the village got its name from a brave mouse that saved the prince of that realm from the bite of a poisonous snake and has the distinction of being the only town in town in the world to be named mouse. It is known for the Mouse Museum which displays mice from all over the world made out of every conceivable material. Mice pop up all over town in the most unsuspected places, decorating fences, on signs, and, of course, for sale everywhere. There is also a felt museum where you can learn how felt has been made down through the ages, see a display of antique felt boots and shoes, and a collection of miniature felt mice.

As I was adventuring around the village with Sandro Katamashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia and Swiss animator Lorenz Wunderle, we stumbled across an amazing display of antique motorcycles and cars. It isn’t a formal museum but the passion of one person who has collected a yard and shed full of amazing vehicular history. The 100 or so bikes ranged from mopeds to early Russian and German pre WW II bikes on down through the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, many with side cars. Myshkin Is known for its museums and this is one not to be missed for sure.

After several stops along the way our final destination was Yaroslavl. Part of the city is a World Heritage site but even more important to the animation world it is home to Aleksandr Petrov and his wife Natasha. On our previous visit to the town several years ago some of us were lucky enough to get to visit his studio and I was lucky enough to get visit his studio and this year I was fortunate enough to do it again.

Each night master animator Ivan Maximov became master Dee Jay Maximov, playing great tunes for us to dance the night away to. Since we were heading north it became colder and wetter, finally driving us into the screening room which normally functions as the top deck bar so it had a dance floor.

Of course the big event at KROK is Carnival. For several days prior to Carnival evening small groups of people could be found throughout the boat with their heads together writing and rehearsing their Carnival performances. My tablemates at meals were a delightful young Latvian couple, Ahete Melece and Gastav Berkgaut and we decided to do a carnival skit together. After we had tossed around a lot of ideas Ahete and Gustav came up with a great plan after they attended a Chat with the Directors session conducted by Yuriy Norshteyn. Instead of having a discussion with the student directors about their films, Yuriy carried on a two hour monologue ending with the statement “Frankly, I don’t like cinema very much”.

First we enacted two short scenes from Yuriy’s iconic Hedgehog in the Fog. In the first scene the little hedgehog (aka me) meets the owl. Gastav told Ahete and I that he had always wanted to be an owl and he certainly gave off perfect, professional hoots in his role. In our second scene the hedgehog realizes that he has left his little bundle on the ground while exploring the hollow tree and it is finally returned to him by a friendly spaniel. The role of the spaniel as played by an adorable west highland terrier who was sailing with us. Of course the westie stole the show.

Next the action shifted to a round table with three chairs where Ahete and Gastav, the serious film scholars, proceeded to thoroughly discuss “my film” without asking me a single question or allowing me to say anything as I sat there. Of course the parody ended with Ahete saying “Well, actually I don’t like cinema very much . . .”

There were so many excellent performances that evening so we three felt very honoured when the august Carnival jury awarded us a prize of a bottle of good vodka, a jar of delicious homemade dill pickles and a KROK 2014 t-shirt. After Carnival dancing and partying continued throughout the night.

The next evening the closing ceremony was held at the Kino Rodina in Yaroslavl. The theatre was built in 1959, retaining the Soviet style exterior, but the interior was completely modernized. Amazingly enough it is the first cinema I have found in Russia, in fact in all of Europe, that doesn’t have a bar in it where patrons can sit and discuss what they had just seen.

Before getting down to the business of announcing the winning films the audience was treated to the highlights of our voyage on screen. The film will be shown again on opening night 2015 in the Ukraine. A complete list of all of the winning films is at the end of the article.

Early the next morning it was time for us to board the bus for the four or so hour ride back to Moscow and final farewells. As always KROK goes by so fast but I am already looking forward to KROK 2015.

Irina Kaplichnaya, General Director of KROK, and her very hard working staff did a wonderful job once again this year steering the KROK ship on a straight course. I cannot thank them all enough for letting me a part of KROK again this year. To submit film to KROK 2015 and find out more about the festival visit their website:

www.krokfestival.comS

My next adventure was to FIKE International Short Film Festival from 21 to 25 October in Evora, Portugal. I was privileged to be on the festival jury where I saw lots of excellent film, explore a fascinating city, and eat some truly delicious meals with our gracious host and festival director Joao Paulo Macedo. My next article will take you to Evora for FIKE.

KROK 2014 INTERNATIONAL JURY:

Gil Alkabetz – Germany/Israel – Jury Foreman

Dmitriy Vysotskiy – Russia

Mauro Carraro – Switzerland

Anatoly Lavrenishyn – Ukraine

Vladimir Leschiov – Latvia

STUDENT FILMS:

Diploma – High Wool – Nikolai Maderthoner and Moritz Mugler, Germany

Diploma – The Table Is Set - Anni, Oja, Sini Pietilainen, Taru Riskila, Markus Tervola, and Nuppu Nykyri , Finland

KROK Bell and $3,000 USD – Return – Natalia Chernysheva, France

GRADUATION FILMS:

Diploma – Sea Legs – Olesya Shchukina, France