The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) has announce the films that have been selected to compete in this year’s event, which takes place Sept. 17 -21 in Ottawa, Ontario. From the record breaking 2149 entries, 97 short films, four features and four schools have made the cut for competition screenings. An additional 26 films will be shown in out-of-competition Showcase screenings.
The feature competition will be a showdown between Bill Plympton’s Idiots & Angels, the surreal anthology Fear[s] Of The Dark from six international animators/directors, Sita Sings The Blues‘a modern animated interpretation of an Indian epic’and director Ari Folman’s much-talked-about animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, which retraces the 1982 Lebanon War from a highly personal point of view.
Returning to the shorts competition are two of last year’s grand prize winners. Augenblick Studios, whose Golden Age won Best Commissioned Animation, is back with the Superjail installment ‘Combaticus.’ Japan’s Koji Yamamura (Japan) won last year’s grand prize for Best Independent Short Animation with Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor, and returns this year with the experimental short A Child’s Metaphysics (Kodomo no Keljijogaku). Other selections from past festival favorites include Don Hertzfeldt’s I Am So Proud of You, Run Wrake’s The Control Master and PES’ Western Spaghetti. A complete listing of all the film selections can be found at www.animationfestival.ca
Ottawa will also host a 20th anniversary screening of Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, with its Oscar award winning animation director Richard Williams in attendance. Animated showcases will include Blue Toons: A Night of Naughty Animation; The New Wave of Japanese Animation; and a four-part program based on Looking for A Place to Happen: On the Road with Canadian Animators, the new book by the festival’s artistic director, Chris Robinson.
Retrospectives this year include a look at the best-animated films made in Switzerland over the last ten years; an exhibition that explores the use of sound in animation; a surrealistic spotlight on experimental filmmaker Skip Battaglia; a look at the music videos of Jonas Odell (U2, Franz Ferdinand, Goldfrapp) and Christopher Mills (Rush, Sam Roberts, The Tragically Hip, Mandy Moore, Modest Mouse, Interpol); plus rare animated propaganda clips of Porky Pig, Felix the Cat, the Flintstones, Bugs Bunny and Bullwinkle in the program Brainwashed! Cartoons That Influence Your Mind. There will also be a retrospective look at the work of Oscar-nominated and Emmy-award-winning artist Michael Sporn, best known for his adaptations of children’s storybooks including Raggedy Ann & Andy.
