New York Animation Festival 1999

May 13 - 15, 1999
Tishman Auditorium at The New School
66 West 12th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
with Satellite programs at Thundergulch, the Knitting Factory Video Lounge, and the Digital Video Wall at Rockefeller Center.

Overview

The 1999 New York Animation Festival presented a diverse international program of film and video animation in New York's Greenwich Village at The New School's Tishman Auditorium from May 13-15, 1999. The Festival gave New York the world with over 150 animations from 15 countries in 7 distinct programs presented at the Festival and in satellite programs that ran from April through June. The Best of Festival Award went to Deviant!, a 7-minute film from England directed by Eoin Clarke and produced by Phil Davies, presented as part of the Festival's International Program. Academy Award winner Bunny, directed by Chris Wedge, received the award for Best Digital Film. Level 13 Entertainment, a division of Film Roman, awarded the Skidmore Award for Best Short Film to Don Hertzfeldt's Billy's Balloon.

More than 40 animators with work in the Festival attended the event, including Bill Plympton (The Exciting Life of a Tree and More Sex and Violence), Emily Hubley (One Self: Fish Girl), Robert Smigel (Saturday Night Live's Titey and Conspiracy Theory Rock), Jim Trainor (The Bats), Steven Dovas (Call Me Fishmael), and Steve Subotnick (Hairyman). A significant international contingent was also present, including, from Australia, Rhian Hinkley (Buckstop); from Austria, Dietmar Offenhuber and Markus Decker (Bike); from Canada, John Barclay (Small Potatoes), Jo Mueris (Two Little Girls: A Bull and a China Shop), Diane Craig and Dan Craig (producers of Graham Falk's Untalkative Bunny), and Francis Desharnais (C'est En Revenant Du Congo); from England, Jonathan Hodgson and Jonathan Bairstow (Feeling My Way) and Jan Otto Ertesvaag (On Hold); from Finland, Milla Moilanen (Wanted); from Israel, Guy Harlap (The Itch), Dana Behrman (Piglatin), and Avi Katz (Last Waltz in New York); from Japan, Jun Kinoshita and Hiromi Habuto (Distortion); and from Denmark, filmmaker Jorgen Klubien (The Little Wooden Boy).

In addition to the May 13-15 screenings, satellite programs expanded the scope of the Festival throughout the city. In April, Maureen Selwood, Associate Director of the Experimental Animation Program at Cal Arts, curated and presented a program of work by recent Cal Arts graduates at the Knitting Factory Video Lounge. On May 11, and in conjunction with Thundergulch, John McIntosh, chair of the BFA Computer Art program at the School of Visual Arts, presented a program of SVA work at the New York Information and Technology Center's Video Wall, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Two programs of digital animation - an International Program curated by Festival Director Matt Isaac and a Pratt Institute Program selected by Pratt Computer Graphics Professor and NYAF Judge Michael O'Rourke - ran from April to June at the Digital Video Wall at Rockefeller Center.

New York animators John Moynihan, a member of the Festival's Selection Committee, and Beck Underwood, whose film That Creepy Old Doll was presented at the Festival, conducted workshops in drawing and basic animation techniques with young people from junior high schools in Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood. The workshops took place at and were held in cooperation with Henry Street Settlement , a social services organization in Manhattan, and were supported by a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The 20 young people who participated in the workshops, which took place the week of the Festival, received complimentary tickets to attend Festival programs.

The 1999 Festival was featured in articles in Animation Magazine, Time Out New York, and on SKY TV (UK).

Co-Presenters

The New School Department of Communication and Film
Knitting Factory Video Lounge
Thindergulch
School of Visual Arts

Sponsors & Supporters

The 1999 New York Animation Festival was sponsored by Level 13 Entertainment / Film Roman, Mitsui Fudosan (New York), and 1251 Avenue of the Americas and was made possible with the The Fund for Creative Communities/New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program, administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the assistance and support of the Consulate General of Australia, the Austrian Cultural Institute, New York, the British Council, the Consulate General of Canada, the Danish Film Institute, the Consulate General of Denmark, Filmkontakt Nord, the Consulate General of Finland, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Netherlands Institute for Animation Film, and the Consulate General of the Netherlands. Award Sponsors included Level 13 Entertainment, Kim's Video, and Harvestworks. The Media Sponsor was The New York Press.

Staff & Personnel

Festival Director/Programmer: Matt Isaac
Festival Coordinators: Andrea Nash, Pat Doyen, Dan Rigney
Festival Assistants: Berke Bas, Tara McDowell, Letha Wilson
Graphic Designers: Anne Frederick, Diane Shaw, Cindy Ho
Web Design: Jenna Spevack
Selection Jury: Musa Brooker, Pat Doyen, Rachel Melman, John Moynihan
Judges: Kris Greengrove, Cheryl Harris, Michael O'Rourke, John Schnall, Kirsten Solberg, Machi Tantillo

Awards

Best of Festival: Deviant! (Eoin Clarke)
Best of Festival Honorable Mention: One Self: Fish Girl (Emily Hubley)
Level 13 Entertainment's "Skidmore Award" for Best Short Film: Billy's Balloon (Don Hertzfeldt)
Student Award - 1st Prize: Organ Cranker (Jon Foulk)
Student Award - 2nd Prize: The Itch (Guy Harlap)
Student Award - 3rd Prize: Leashlessness (Stefan Gruber)
Best New York Film: The Bats (Jim Trainor)
Judges' Citation for Humor: Call Me Fishmael (Steven Dovas)
Judges' Citation for Humor: Untalkative Bunny (Graham Falk)
Judges' Citation for Art Direction/Sound & Design: Hail Mary (Maureen Selwood)
Judges' Citation for Direction: Lily & Jim (Don Hertzfeldt)
Festival Director's Citation for Technique: Buckstop (Rhian Hinkley)
Festival Director's Citation for Technique: The Secret Story (Janie Geiser)

Best Digital Film: Bunny (Chris Wedge)
Best Digital Film Honorable Mention: The Smell of Horror (Mitch Butler)
Best Character Animation - Student Digital Film: Carrottastrophe (Michael Shahan)
Best Character Animation - Student Digital Film - Honorable Mention: 4 (Stephen Gressak)
Best Digital Student Film: Letter From the Western Front (Daniel M. Kanemoto)
Best Digital Student Film Honorable Mention: Plum (Mui Shokouhi)
Judges' Citation for Most Promising Student Digital Animator: Java Noir (Ran Anzovin)
Festival Director's Citation for Technique: Wanted (Milla Moilanen)

Programs

Digital Program 1
Thursday, May 13, 7pm
A program of computer-generated and manipulated animation, including The Meet Cafe, Rasmus Kjaer's haunting interpretation of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch; the 1998 Res Fest Tour fave The Smell of Horror by Mitch Butler; and Java Noir, a black & white film noir spoof by 17 year-old Raf Anzovin.

The Meet Cafe (Rasmus Kjaer, 1996, Denmark, 5min)
Contrast (Ralph DeStefano, 1997, 2min)
The Smell of Horror (Mitch Butler, 1998, 8min)
Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (Jed Carter, 1998, 6min)
A Narrow Martian of Error (Marcus Heart & Angela DiMeglio, 1998, 3min)
Only (Wooksang Chang, 1998, 2min)
Distortion (Jun Kinoshita, Hiromi Habuto, Hirotsugo Motoyama, and Tsuyoshi Mizoguchi, 1998, Japan, 5min)
The Car Race (Chris Walley, 1998, Scotland, 2min)
Bowtie Blues (Terry Sanderson, 1997, Canada, 3min)
The Last Cigarette (Robert Slawinski, 1998, 4min)
Bike (Dietmar Offenhuber, Austria, 1998, 1min)
Java Noir (Raf Anzovin, 1997, 6min)
Carrottastrophe (Michael Shahan, 1998, 1min)
Wireless Witchcraft (Maria Pavlou, 1998, 1min)
The Cut Above (Miran Shim, 1998, 4min)
Object Lesson (Dylan Marshall Sisson, 1999, 3min)
A Hunger Artist (Stephen Moros, 1997, 3min)
Bob's Body Parts (Jason Bravo, 1998, 1min)
A Letter From the Western Front (Daniel M. Kanemoto, 1998, 9min)

Experimental Program
Thursday, May 13, 9pm
A program of cutting-edge animation by artists and fiercely independent makers that includes Jeff Koone's Phi-Brite, shot entirely off a Lite-Brite; Janie Geiser's visually rich cut-out animation The Secret Story; Jim Trainor's short The Bats, where a "vermivorous neo-tropical phyllostomid of no extant species" narrates a story of a life devoted to carnal pleasures; Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh's The Old Man & The Goblins, a quirky puppet film paying homage to Ladislaw Starewicz; and Golden Shoes by Adam Gravois and Dame Darcy, the song of a little doll whose fantasies of an afterlife of luxury deliver her from her bleak rural existence.

Golden Shoes (Adam Gravois & Dame Darcy, 1996, 3min)
Turkish Traffic (Jeff Scher, 1998, 5min)
The Secret Story (Janie Geiser, 1997, 9min)
Cross Ties (Laura Di Trapani, 1998, 4min)
Blood and Sunflowers (Christiane Cegavske, 1996, 1min)
Ground Zero/Sacred Ground (Karen Aqua, 1997, 9min)
Phi-Brite (Jeff Koone, 1997, 3min)
Totem (Stacey Steers, 1998, 11min)
My Father's Story (Mary Kocol, 1998, 11min)
The Bats (Jim Trainor, 1998, 8min)
In This Vision (Arlen Johnson, 1998, 6min)
Piglatin (Dana Behrman, 1998, 3min)
Silence (Marcel Valcarce, 1997, 2min)
In Between (Anna Minkkinen, 1998, 3min)
The Old Man & The Goblins (Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, 1998, 4min)
Outermost (Stephanie Maxwell and Allan Schindler, 1998, 5min)
Sonic Drift (Eleanor Goldsmith, 1998, 1min)
A Bad Night (Emre and Lev Yilmaz, 1998, 2min)

U.S. Program 1
Friday, May 14, 7pm
A survey of outstanding animation from throughout the U.S. - including Bill Plympton's The Exciting Life of A Tree, a comical look at life throughout centuries of human and animal events from a tree's point of view; Mike DeSeve's When Animated Animals Attack, a satirical reality show spoof; Mindless Bob, one simple man's view of society, directed by former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh; and Corky Quakenbush's parody Clops.

Call Me Fishmael (Steven Dovas, 1997, 3min)
Hail Mary (Maureen Selwood, 1999, 4min)
Singa Pura (Jim Ang, 1998, 7min)
The Exciting Life of A Tree (Bill Plympton, 1998, 7min)
When Animated Animals Attack (Mike De Seve, 1998, 1min)
Mindless Bob (Mark Mothersbaugh, 1999, 4min)
Leashlessness (Stefan Gruber, 1998, 3min)
Clops (Corky Quakenbush, 1998, 4min)
Last Waltz in New York (Avi Katz, 1998, 6min)
Titey (Robert Smigel/J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, 1998, 2min)
He Has Made Me Glad (Jonathan Richter, 1998, 3min)
Flick n Flora (Doug Langdale, 1998, 4min)
Lily and Jim (Don Hertzfeldt, 1997, 13min)
The Boy with the Flip-Top Head (Chris Finnegan and Joseph Maidenberg, 1998, 9min)

International Program 1
Friday, May 14, 9pm
An international potpourri, including a short from the Bolex Brothers directed by Martin Davies and Andy Brown, Keep In a Dry Place and Away From Children - the story of Ike, half baby, half duck, who is chained to his cot, wings confiscated at birth, but with every deranged dribble comes closer to becoming more like the swan on the matchbox of his desire. The program also included Australian filmmaker Rhian Hinkley's photo animation Buckstop, an adventure into an impossible western where the real has become the unreal.

Keep In a Dry Place and Away From Children (Martin Davies and Andy Brown/Bolex Brothers, 1997, England, 9min)
Deviant! (Eoin Clarke, England, 1997, 7min)
Ashputtle or the Mother's Ghost (Nag Vladermersky and Susi Allender, 1998, Australia, 11min)
Tempera (Liesbeth Worm, 1997, Netherlands, 10min)
C'est En Revenant Du Congo (Francis Desharnais, 1998, Canada, 3min)
The Little Princess' Birthday Party (Jim Lefevre, 1997, Scotland, 6min)
Untalkative Bunny (Graham Falk, 1998, Canada, 6min)
Up Town (Enrico Paolantonio, 1998, Italy, 9min)
Tomato (Jan Little, 1998, Canada, 6min)
When the Dust Settles (Louis Johnson, 1997, Canada, 7min)
Buckstop (Rhian Hinkley, 1997, Australia, 5min)
On Hold (Jan Otto Ertesvaag , 1997, England, 4min)
Billy Sink (Emily Skinner, 1997, England, 6min)
King of the Castle (Jacqueline Matisse, 1998, Australia, 4min)
Staircasemountain (Stephen Brown, 1998, England, 6min)

Digital Program 2
Saturday, May 15, 5pm
A computer-generated animation program that includes Chris Wedge's Academy Award winner Bunny, in which an elder Bunny receives a late night visitor and undergoes a metamorphosis, with music by Tom Waits; Tightrope, Daniel Robichaud's film of a jester moving along a tightrope who encounters a Suit walking towards him - a desperate act brings potentially dire consequences for both; and, from Finland, Milla Moilanen's Wanted, a visually rich and startling film that animates archival photographs from early 20th century racial biology research.

Volchok (Sergey Aniskov, 1998, 4min)
4 (Stephen Gressak, 1999, 1min)
Still Life (Scott Curtin, 1998, 2min)
Plum (Mui Shokouhi, 1998, 5min)
Voices (Trine Lister, 1997, Denmark, 5min)
Delicious Waves (Michael Blumenthal, 1998, 3min)
The Dinner Guest (Nigel Hendrickson, 1998, 2min)
Fairy Tale Kid (Danny Keller, 1998, 2min)
Clock (Aaron Lim, 1999, 2min)
Rein Check (Erik Winquist, 1998, 1min)
Race Speedster (Scott Rosann, 1997, 6min)
To Build a Better Mousetrap (Christopher Leone, 1999, 2min)
Bunny (Chris Wedge, 1998, 7min)
Transfigured (Stephen Arthur, 1998, Canada, 6min)
Tightrope (Daniel Robichaud, 1998, 5min)
M.C. Escher: Sky and Water (Gayle Thomas, 1998, Canada, 3min)
Wild Card (Van Phan, 1998, 3min)
Eroica (Roberto Ziche, 1998, 4min)
Wanted (Milla Moilanen, 1998, Finland, 11min)

International Program 2
Saturday, May 15, 7pm
This international program includes Aardman Animations' Humdrum, directed by Peter Peake, in which the domestic world of monotonous radio stations and pointless double-glazing is disrupted by the onset of a deadly game; love, lust, guilt and disgust come together in Little Dark Poet, a Bolex Brothers production, directed by Mike Booth, which mixes live action and stop-motion animation.

Condensed Night (Laurie J. Proud, 1997, England, 2min)
Like Drowning (Catherine Murphy, 1998, Australia, 10min)
Plastic (Matthew McCollough, 1998, Australia, 6 min)
Over The Hill (Amanda Enright, 1997, England, 5min)
The Itch (Guy Harlap, 1998, Israel, 5min)
Small Potatoes (John Barclay, 1998, Canada, 3min)
Humpty Dumpty (Setsuro Sugiyama, 1998, Japan, 4min)
Soffioni (Dandelions)
(Andrea Guaraldo, 1998, Italy, 2min)
Little Dark Poet (Mike Booth/Bolex Brothers, 1998, England, 5min)
Headdress (Scott Clark, 1998, Canada, 4min)
Feeling My Way (Jonathan Hodgson, 1997, England, 6min)
Two Little Girls (Jo Meuris, 1998, Canada, 5min)
Humdrum (Peter Peake/Aardman Animations, 1998, England, 7min)
Nightlife (Anwyn Beier, 1998, Scotland, 7min)
Shutterbug (Joe Brumm, 1998, Australia, 3min)
El Caminante (Debra Smith, 1997, England, 5min)
Light of Uncertainty (Clive Walley, 1997, England, 10min)
The Little Wooden Boy (Jorgen Klubien, 1998, Denmark, 10min

U.S. Program 2
Saturday, May 15, 9pm
A program of U.S. animation that includes Mark Osborne's Academy Award-nominated More, a prize winner at Sundance; More Sex & Violence, a collection of outrageous visual short gags from Bill Plympton; Don Hertzfeldt's Billy's Balloon, a darkly hilarious and unbelievably twisted look at a little boy and his balloon; New York filmmaker Beck Underwood's bedtime story nightmare That Creepy Old Doll and Robert Smigel/J.J. Sedelmaier Productions' Conspiracy Theory Rock, a dead-on critique of the media that parodies the children's show "Schoolhouse Rock," which will never air on SNL again.

More (Mark Osborne, 1998, 6min)
Hairyman (Steven Subotnick, 1998, 3min)
One Self: Fish Girl (Emily Hubley, 1997, 10min)
Evan's Tiny Circus (Evan Spiridellis, 1999, 6min)
Soda (Alex Orrelle, 1997, 4min)
Organ Cranker (Jon Foulk, 1998, 7min)
More Sex & Violence (Bill Plympton, 1998, 7min)
Billy's Balloon (Don Hertzfeldt, 1998, 6min)
Millennium Bug (Lee Lanier, 1998, 1min)
Victor (Wes Archer, 1998, 4min)
That Creepy Old Doll (Beck Underwood, 1998, 4min)
Put On a Happy Face (Suzanne Twining, 1997, 7min)
Conspiracy Theory Rock (Robert Smigel/J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, 1998, 2min)

Satellite Programs

Cal Arts Student Program
Thursday, April 29, 7 pm
Knitting Factory Video Lounge
Animation from California Institute of the Arts Experimental Animation Program, curated and presented by Maureen Selwood, filmmaker and Associate Director of Cal Art's Program.

Organ Cranker (Jon Foulk, 7min)
...less (Jonyeck Ahn, 4min)
Ropa Tendida (Alexandra Jarabo, 10min)
The Janitor (Vanessa Schwartz, 4min)
Four (Eli Chartkoff, 3min)
Everybody Bowl (Dustin Woehrman, 4min)
La Mujer Largija (Shelly Wattenbarger, 4min)
Funny Face (Helder Sun, 3min)
Leashlessness (Stephan Gruber, 3min)
Unbearable Being (Colin Barton, 2min)
Greeener (Mark Osborne, 5min)

School of Visual Arts Program
Tuesday, May 11, 12:30pm
Thundergulch@the wall, 55 Broad Street
John McIntosh, Chair of the BFA Computer Art program at the School of Visual Arts, selected a program of SVA work, including a project by Jeremy Butler and Joel Sevilla, who will discuss the production of their animation project that was selected for the SIGGRAPH Kids program.

Rockefeller Center Video Wall
1251 Avenue of the Americas (East Concourse), Mondays and Wednesdays, April - June, 1999

International Animation Program
(presented Mondays at Noon)
A selection of international digital animation shorts curated by Festival Director Matt Isaac.

The Ox Follows the Rat (Katrin Straub, 1999, 3min)
Voices (Trine Lister, 1997, Denmark, 5min)
The Meet Cafe (Rasmus Kaer, 1996, Denmark, 5min)
Cloison / Partitions (Beriou, 1997, France, 5min)
Car-Nage (Paula Bonucchi, 1998, Canada, 2min)
The Car Race (Chris Walley, 1998, Scotland, 2min)
Venus (Isabel Grahs, 1997, Germany, 3min)
Distortion (Jun Kinoshita, Hiromi Habuto, Hirotsugo Motoyama, and Tsuyoshi Mizoguchi, 1998, Japan, 5min)
Resent Car (Hotaka Koike, 1998, Japan, 1min)
Wanted (Milla Moilanen, 1998, Finland, 11min)
Transfigured (Stephen Arthur, 1998, Canada, 6min)
M.C. Escher: Sky and Water (Gayle Thomas, 1998, Canada, 3min)
Plum (Mui Shokouhi, 1998, 5min)
Findings...Bitter-Sweet (David Williams, 1998, Scotland, 13min)

Pratt Institute Program
(presented Wednesdays at Noon)
Animation from the Computer Graphics & Interactive Media Program at Pratt Institute curated by computer animation artist and Pratt Associate Professor Michael O'Rourke. O'Rourke coordinated an informal discussion at the Digital Video Wall on May 5.
Rolling Stone (Tim Cheung, 2min)
Work To Do (Jonah Hall, 1min)
Beach Dreams (Felipe Lara, 2min)
Traces of a Shadow (Yeenshi Chen, 1min)
Jack and Jill (Jonah Hall, 1min)
Kyrie Eleison (Michael O'Rourke, 2min)
Bug (Jin Wan Park, 3min)
Simulacrum (Michael DiComo, 2min)
The Seventh Day (Hamid Rahmanian, 6min)
My World (Jonah Hall, 1min)