Opening night, packed house...the 40th OIAF officially begins!
The Ottawa International Animation Festival launched last night with short but sweet speech from this year's honourary president Donald McWilliams.
McWilliams is an intriguing choice and proves Chris Robinson is still doing the totally unexpected. A documentary filmmaker, McWilliams spent his NFB years virtually embedded in the Animation Studio and the impact is clear in his visionary work.
This year's MC was Joel Frenzer, and the ubiquitous but illusive Chris Robinson himself joined him to introduce this year's jury. Feature animation jurists are Giannalberto Bendazzi, Elise Simard, and Peter Millard. The Shorts jury includes Ann Marie Fleming, Brooke Keesling, and Sarina Nihei.
The fun signal film is a joint effort by Andreas Hykade and Theodore Ushev heavily voiced by the animators. (I can only imagine how much beer was shared over wifi doing this.)
