The Haze (2008)

Anthony Chen served as a radio presenter, a freelance movie reviewer and has done work as an actor. He directed G-23, which won awards in Korea, France, Belgium, Malaysia and Singapore, and Ah Ma, which was given an award at the 60th Cannes Film Festival.

On a hot, humid day, Singapore is shrouded by the haze caused by a burning forest in neighbouring Indonesia. Two teenagers decide to skip school and idle the day away. An innocent love affair plays out indoors amidst the dust and smoke that spreads outside.
The Haze aims to capture our youthfullness, in all its aspects: rebellion, recklessness, unpretentiousness, ignorance and innocence. First love can be awkward, selfish, beautiful and sinful at the same time.
In these days you can watch this short film at the Berlin Film Festival.

Kawarenushi

Audrey Kawasaki. Her work is both innocent and erotic. Each subject is attractive yet disturbing. The figures she paints are seductive and contain an air of melancholy. They exist in their own sensually esoteric realm, yet at the same time present a sense of accessibility that draws the observer to them.

Your Friend the Rat (2007)

Your Friend the Rat provided Pixar Studio with opportunities for experimentation. Pixar studio experimented with playing around with new medium. Well, it was actually old medium again, but they're doing it in 2D and stop motion, etc. At 11 minutes, it is also the longest Pixar short to date. Along with hand drawn animation, the short also includes stop-motion animation, computer generated imagery and live action.
The short features Remy & Emile as they guide viewers through the history of the rat and attempt to correct some common misperceptions in an effort to persuade human viewers not to kill the ubiquitous rodents.
Your Friend the Rat was nominated in the Best Animated Short Subject category at the 35th annual Annie Awards. The short was directed by Jim Capobianco, who says he was particularly inspired by Ward Kimball, and was written by Jeff Pidgeon and Alexander Woo.
It is available on the Ratatouille dvd and Blu-ray.

Lucca '07

Andrea Altea. His first work was the comics strip ITIS. People appreciated his comic strip, then Altea chose to change the background to create a new novel: ITIS on the road. He began to issue it on the Web, but he gave that up in 2006.
He launched The Krishtel blog, where he'll issue a new comics strip. In the summer of 2007 he came in third in the Usellus competition, and he won the audience award. He also began to issuing on Macchie D'inchiostro.

Symphonie Diagonal (1925)

Symphonie Diagonal is one of my favourtite experimental short films, although it exists today only in fragments. In this short film, the emphasis is on objectively analyzed movement rather than expressiveness on the surface patterning of lines into clearly defined movements, controlled by a mechanical, almost metronomic tempo: vertical and horizontal, straight and curved, light and dark, strong and weak, disappearing and emerging. Various ‘expressions’ of line are presented at a controlled, mechanical tempo, revealing the film’s acute observation of the organization of time intervals. Visual imagery has a melodic quality, like a musical composition visually expressed.

Symphonie Diagonal has been described as absolute film and Visual Music. Itself film’s title suggests musical associations and Eggeling himself referred to his early drawing experiments as orchestrations. It was considered by many to be the "first" true abstraction in animation. He explored the depiction of movement, first in scroll drawings and then on film. In 1922 Eggeling bought a motion picture camera, and working without Richter, sought to create a new kind of cinema. In 1923 he showed a now lost, 10 minute film based on an earlier scroll titled Horizontal-vertical Orchestra. In the summer of 1923 he began work on Symphonie Diagonale. Paper cut-outs and then tin foil figures were photographed a frame at a time. He spent three or four years on it and died less than three weeks after its first showing in 1925.

You can buy: Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s

The Plane Cabby’s Lucky Day (1932)

There is an abundance of startling creativity and ingenuity in this short. Teizo Kato’s The Plane Cabby’s Lucky Day (1932) describes a 1980 automated Japan where urban transportation takes place in the sky. The plane cab driver espouses traditional values, looking after his mother and maintaining a strong sense of justice.
The futuristic utopian setting is more parallel to the early cartoons of the West. There are politically incorrect images of natives who sing and dance all day because they live in paradise.

Grand People’s Study House

by Charlie Crane

Publications
2007 Welcome to Pyongyang, published by Chris Boot

Awards
2007 Association of Photographers Silver Award
2006 Association of Photographers Judges Choice
2006 National Portrait Gallery Awards Semi-Finalist
2006 Winner of British Journal of Photography Award
2005 Association of Photographers Bronze Award
2005 Schweppes Portrait Awards Final Selection
1998 Kodak Photographer of the Year

Iraq in fragments (2006)

In 2002, when it was already clear that the United States would invade Iraq, James Longley traveled there to begin pre-production work on his second
documentary feature, Iraq in Fragments. The film was released in 2006 to critical acclaim and received many awards including an Academy Award nomination for 2007 Best documentary feature. Now Longley has realized his third short movie, Sari's Mother, which received an Academy Award nomination, too.

This is a film about Iraq as a country and also about its people. Longley documents every single thing. He wanted to film ten stories at once, all in different parts of the country. In the end, he only filmed six different stories. He put only three of those stories into the final film. Iraq In Fragments illuminates post-war Iraq in three acts, building a vivid picture of a country pulled in different directions by religion and ethnicity. Filmed in verité style, with no scripted narration, the film explores the lives of ordinary Iraqis: their thoughts, beliefs and aspirations. It presents many layers and points of view, reflecting the diversity of a country with an uncertain future. Longley gets close and personal in his film, and he chose the cinema verité approach thus putting the viewer inside the lives of his subjects. This short film introduces the viewer to the breadth and complexity of the Iraqis divided along these lines, but the reality of Iraq is much more complicated.
You can buy Iraq in Fragments.

Saru Masamune (1930)

People think they know what anime are. How many people are familiar with classic Japanese animations? Japanese films were more conservative then than they are today and they tended to re-assert their own cultural identity and set of values. Many short films glorify the exploits of former military heroes.

In these days, the Japan Society of New York, presents Dawn of Japanese Animation, a screening of 38 animated films, from February 13th through the 16th. If you like anime, you must go to New York. If you can't, don't worry. Mellart will help you. We'll begin with Yasuji Murata's Saru Masamune (1930), based on the legend of how the great Japanese swordsmith, Masamune, received a sword from a tribe of monkeys after rescuing one of them from a hunter with a gun.
You can buy: Animated Classics of Japanese Literature - The Sound of Waves, Parts 1 & 2/ Growing Up, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature - The Izu Dancer, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature: The Harp of Burma/Season of the Sun and Animated Classics of Japanese Literature - Botchan

Ulisse

Gioma is an Italian cartoonist, who gained success with his strip Ulisse. He's also famous for his satirical comics.

He began to issue this comics in newspapers. After ten years of pubblications he chose the web and the magazine Il foglio letterario which will release the TPB "Ulisse. Fumetti di Gioma".

Madame Tutli Putli (inspiration, 2007)

You might be interested in Madame Tutli Putli (integral video), in The making of Madame Tutli Putli and in Madame Tutli Putli(eyes created by Jason Walker)

Tonto Woman (2008)

The Tonto Woman is based on Elmore Leonard’s short story of the same. The 35 minute long western shot on 35mm & posted in HD, directed by Daniel Barber of Knucklehead, was a collaboration between himself, writer Joe Schrapnel, DP Ben Davis (Layer Cake, Stardust) and Knucklehead’s Producer Matthew Brown. This film is about a cattle rustler who meets a woman living in isolation after being held prisoner for eleven years by the Mojave Indians.

Shot in Almeria, Spain over the course of ten days utilizing some of the locations and sets seen previously in the classic Westerns 'A Fistful of Dollars' and 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly' it stars Francesco Quinn and Charlotte Asprey. Editing was carried out by Rick Russell.The post-production was supervised by Jason Watts, who worked on nearly all of the shots and where necessary generated 2D dust particles to help heighten the tense atmosphere in many of the confrontational shots.
You can buy the novel The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories.

El Bufón y la Infanta (2007)

“El Bufón y la Infanta” is a short film, produced by Dygra Films, which is inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel "The Birthday of the Infant ". The action is developed in a room of a museum dedicated to Vela'zquez, where the dwarf Francisco de Lezcano leaves his picture, calling the attention of Margarita, the daughter of the king . She leaves her picture, too.
It's a mute, magic story which show us how different could be the reality.

Stella

by Richard Learoyd

Le Mozart des Pickpockets (2006)

Pollet-Villard, who wrote, co-starred and directed this droll tale of two Paris pickpockets, has won the Gallic Audience Prize and the FNAC budding talent award.

Like Philippe Pollet-Villard's other films, this story is of the same kind: tragi-comical. All of the characters in his movies are in difficult situations or trying to escape from them. It is a context which I collocate between social film and large comedy. On the one hand we have authorship film with regard to social themes and on the other we have a comedy which treats stories of couples and other subjects.
Philippe and Richard live off petty scams in the Parisian neighborhood of Barbès. They find themselves responsible for a deaf-mute Romanian child. After trying to get rid of the child, they attempt to make him 'work.' Despite the language barrier, the boy manages to devise his own method of stealing.

Perpetuum Mobile (2006)

“Perpetuum Mobile”, a short film produced by Silverspace, written and directed by Raquel García-Ajofrín Virtus and Enrique García Rodríguez, is the first cinematographic project produced and directed entirely by Silverspace. They used Autodesk’s Maya 3D modelling and animation software along with Pixar’s Renderman, and Autodesk Combustion, a compositing software, for colour grading and compositing.

Its plot narrates the life of a young Leonardo Da Vinci and recollects the events that motivated the young genius to dedicate his life to art and science. The film is interesting for its search for the meaning of life.
Perpetuum Mobile has already received 12 award nominations and has won awards at the Independent Film Festival of California, L´Uovo de Napoli, the Las Vegas International Film Festival and the Oregon Da Vinci Film Festival. The film has also been translated into 12 different languages and was shown at SIGGRAPH 2007 and the Sitges Cinema Festival in Catalunya, Spain.

Depressed Superheroes (Supereroi depressi)

by Pierrluigi Diana

Tooth and Nail (1970)

Dennis Oppenheim is one of America's finest and most creative conceptual and performance artists. He first gained acclaim in the 1960s, as a pioneer in conceptual artworks, body art, video and sculpture. As if all this wasn't enough, the man is still working on his art even as you're reading this. His early works tended to focus on performance actions that centered on representations of human and animal bodies. These actions can often be seen as mesmerizing, confusing, and mysterious.

In the early 1970s, Dennis Oppenheim was in the vanguard of artists using film and video to investigate themes relating to body and performance. This portfolio features a selection of his works known as the Aspen Tapes, produced between 1970 and 1974, in which Oppenheim uses his own body as a site of experimentation in the personal. In these works the artist enters into an intimate and dynamic dialogue with his body as he explores the boundaries of personal risk, bodily transformation, and interpersonal communication. His works explore new and unusual forms of communication and address and they present the act of communicating with others as a physical and biological extension of the self.
Oppenheim has therefore created a system that allows the artist to become the material; to consider himself the sole vehicle of art: the distributor, initiator and receiver, simultaneously. Understanding the body as both subject and object allows the artist to think in terms of an entirely different surface. It creates a shift in direction from the creation of solid matter to the pursuit of internal or surface change.

You can buy:Tooth and Nail: Film and Video 1970-74 by Dennis Oppenheim, Parallel Realities: The Drawings of Dennis Oppenheim and Dennis Oppenheim: Galloping Through the West.

La Flor Más Grande del Mundo (2007)

Based on the novel of the same name by Jose Saramago, 'La Flor Más Grande del Mundo(The World's Largest Flower)' is a poetic juvenile story that proclaims the value of small actions and respect for the nature. Juan Pablo Etcheverry, who was nominated for the best Goya 2005 with the short animation' Minotauromaquia, Pablo en el laberinto', has begun again to fuse digital effects with plasticine. One of the characters in La Flor Más Grande del Mundo is actually Jose Saramago, who narrates the story.

This short film, full of symbols and enigmas, is aimed at the childhood audience that is growing in a world which has not yet being broken by individualism, violence and the lack of ideals. In this short film we can find two messages, one for children (the discovery of our value and altruism) and another one for all men and women who interrogate themselves about their place in the world.

You can watch the video here.

You buy the novel LA Flor Mas Grande Del Mundo/the World's Largest Flower.

Goya Awards

BEST FILM / MEJOR PELÍCULA
El Orfanato / The Orphanage by Juan Antonio Bayona
La Soledad by Jaime Rosales
Las 13 rosas by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro
Siete mesas de billar francés by Gracia Querejeta

BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE FOREIGN FILM / MEJOR PELÍCULA EXTRANJERA DE HABLA HISPANA
La edad de la peseta by Pavel Giroud de Cuba
Mariposa negra by Francisco J. Lombardi de Perú
Padre nuestro by Rodrigo Sepúlveda de Chile
XXY by Lucía Puenzo de Argentina

BEST DOCUMENTARY / MEJOR PELÍCULA DOCUMENTAL
El productor by Fernando Méndez-Leite
Fados by Carlos Saura
Invisibles by Isabel Coixet, Win Wenders, Fernando León de Aranoa, Mariano Barroso and Javier Corcuera
Lucio by Aitor Arregui and José Mª Goenaga

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE / MEJOR PELÍCULA DE ANIMACIÓN
Azur y Asmar by Michel Ocelot
Betizu eta urrezko zintzarria by Egoitz Rodríguez Olea
En busca de la piedra mágica by Lenard F. Krawinkel and Holger Tappe
Nocturna, una aventura mágica by Víctor Maldonado and Adriá García

BEST DIRECTOR / MEJOR DIRECCIÓN
Icíar Bollaín for Mataharis
Emilio Martínez-Lázaro for Las 13 rosas
Gracia Querejeta for Siete mesas de billar francés
Jaime Rosales for La Soledad

BEST NEW DIRECTOR / MEJOR DIRECCIÓN NOVEL
Juan Antonio Bayona, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
Tom Fernández, for La Torre de Suso
David and Tristán Ulloa, for Pudor
Félix Viscarret, for Bajo las estrellas

BEST ACTOR / MEJOR INTERPRETACIÓN MASCULINA PROTAGONISTA
Alfredo Landa, for Luz de domingo
Álvaro de Luna, for El prado de las estrellas
Alberto San Juan, for Bajo las estrellas
Tristán Ulloa, for Mataharis

BEST ACTRESS / MEJOR INTERPRETACIÓN FEMENINA PROTAGONISTA
Blanca Portillo, for Siete mesas de billar francés
Belén Rueda, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
Emma Suárez, for Bajo las estrellas
Maribel Verdú, for Siete mesas de billar francés

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR / MEJOR INTERPRETACIÓN MASCULINA DE REPARTO
Raúl Arévalo, for Siete mesas de billar francés
José Manuel Cervino, for Las 13 rosas
Julián Villagrán, for Bajo las estrellas
Emilio Gutiérrez Cava, for La Torre de Suso
Carlos Larrañaga, for Luz de domingo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS / MEJOR INTERPRETACIÓN FEMENINA DE REPARTO
Amparo Baró, for Siete mesas de billar francés
Geraldine Chaplin, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
Nuria González, for Mataharis
María Vázquez, for Mataharis

BEST NEW ACTOR / MEJOR ACTOR REVELACIÓN
Óscar Abad, for El prado de las estrellas
Gonzalo de Castro, for La Torre de Suso
Roger Princep, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
José Luis Torrijo, for La Soledad

BEST NEW ACTRESS / MEJOR ACTRIZ REVELACIÓN
Gala Évora, for Lola, la película
Bárbara Goenaga, for Oviedo Express
Nadia de Santiago, for Las 13 rosas
Manuela Velasco, for Rec

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY / MEJOR GUIÓN ORIGINAL
Icíar Bollaín and Tatiana Rodríguez, for Mataharis
Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, for Las 13 rosas
Gonzalo Suárez, for Oviedo Express
Gracia Querejeta and David Planell, for Siete mesas de billar francés
Sergio G. Sánchez, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY / MEJOR GUIÓN ADAPTADO
Ventura Pons, for Barcelona, (un mapa)
Laura Santullo, for La Zona
Félix Viscarret, for Bajo las estrellas
Tristán Ulloa, for Pudor
Imanol Uribe, for La carta esférica

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY / MEJOR FOTOGRAFÍA
José Luis Alcaine, for Las 13 rosas
Álvaro Gutiérrez, for Bajo las estrellas
Ángel Iguacel, for Siete mesas de billar francés
Carlos Suárez, for Oviedo Express

BEST EDITING / MEJOR MONTAJE
David Gallart for Rec
Fernando Pardo for Las 13 rosas
Elena Ruiz for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
Nacho Ruiz Capillas for Siete mesas de billar francés

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE / MEJOR MÚSICA ORIGINAL
Roque Baños, for Las 13 rosas
Carles Cases, for Oviedo Express
Míkel Salas, for Bajo las estrellas
Fernando Velázquez, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST ORIGINAL SONG / MEJOR CANCIÓN ORIGINAL
"Esa luz," by Luis Tosar, Piti Sanz, Santiago García de Leániz for Mataharis
"Fado da saudade," by Fernando Pinto Do Amaral, Carlos Do Carmo for Fados
"Glommy Sunday," by Lucía Jiménez for La caja Kovak
"Happy happy Chueca," by Diossa and Malyzzia for Chuecatown

BEST EXECUTIVE/LINE PRODUCER / MEJOR DIRECCIÓN DE PRODUCCIÓN
Juan Carmona and Salvador Gómez Cuenca, for Luz de domingo
Martín Cabañas, for Las 13 rosas
Teresa Cepeda, for Oviedo Express
Sandra Hermida, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST ART DIRECTION / MEJOR DIRECCIÓN ARTÍSTICA
Wolfgang Burmann, for Oviedo Express
Edou Hydallgo, for Las 13 rosas
Gil Parrondo, for Luz de domingo
Josep Rosell, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST COSTUME DESIGN / MEJOR DISEÑO DE VESTUARIO
Sonia Grande for Lola, la película
Lena Mossum for Las 13 rosas
Lourdes de Orduña for Luz de domingo
María Reyes for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS / MEJORES EFECTOS ESPECIALES
Reyes Abades and Álex G. Ortoll, for El corazón de la tierra
David Ambid, Enric Masip and Álex Villagrasa, for Rec
Pau Costa, Raúl Ramanillos, and Carlos Lozano, for Las 13 rosas
David Martí, Montse Ribé, Pau Costa, Enric Masip, Lluis Castells and Jordi San Agustín, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST SOUND / MEJOR SONIDO
Carlos Bonmati, Alfonso Pino and Carlos Faruolo, for Las 13 rosas
Licio Marcos de Oliveira and Bernat Aragonés, for Tuya siempre
Iván Marín, José Antonio Bermúdez and Leopoldo Aledo, for Siete mesas…
Xavi Mas, Marc Orts, Oriol Tarragó, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR / MEJOR MAQUILLAJE and PELUQUERÍA
Lourdes Briones and Fermín Galán, for Oviedo Express
Lola López and Itziar Arrieta, for El Orfanato / The Orphanage
Mariló Osuna, Almudena Fonseca and José Juez for Las 13 rosas
José Quetglas and Blanca Sánchez, for El corazón de la tierra

BEST NARRATIVE SHORT / MEJOR CORTOMETRAJE DE FICCIÓN
El pan nuestro by Aitor Merino Unzueta
Padam… by José Manuel Carrasco Fuentes
Paseo by Arturo Rúiz Serrano
Proverbio chino by Javier San Román
Salvador - Historia de un milagro cotidiano by Abdelatif Abdeselam Hamed

BEST ANIMATED SHORT / MEJOR CORTOMETRAJE DE ANIMACIÓN
Atención al cliente by Marcos Valin and David Alonso
El Bufón y la infanta by Juan Ramón Galiñanes García
La Flor más grande del mundo by Juan Pablo Etcheverry
Perpetuum mobile by Raquel García-Ajofrin Virtus and Enrique García Rodríguez
Tadeo Jones y el sótano maldito by Enrique Gato Borregán

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT / MEJOR CORTOMETRAJE DOCUMENTAL
Caranbanchel, un barrio de cine by Juan Carlos Zambrana
El anónimo Caronte by Toni Bestard
El hombre felíz by Isabel Lucina Gil Márquez
Valkirias by Eduardo Soler

Honorary Goya / Goya de Honor
Alfred Landa

Julia's back

by Julieta Sans.

Exhibitions:

-National Portrait Gallery Photographic Prize 2007 (second prize)
-Amour Expo, Cabourg Gallery, France, co-curator and participant, 2006
-DayFour: Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, book and show, Six Degrees, London 2006

-Intimacy, Campbell Works, co-curator and participant. London 2005

-Central Saint Martins Postgraduate show, 2005
-Open, 198 Gallery, London 2004
-Summer Festival, Futura Ciudad Cultural Konex, Buenos Aires, 2004
-Cipea Centro Cultural, Buenos Aires, 2003

Madame Tutli Putli(eyes created by Jason Walker, 2007)

You might be interested in Madame Tutli Putli (integral video) and in The making of Madame Tutli Putli

Gus Arriola is dead

Gordo creator Gus Arriola died Saturday following a lengthy bout with Parkinson’s disease.
He was born in Arizona in July 1917, but grew up in Los Angeles. Immediately
after high school, he spent a year working on Krazy Kat for Screen Gems, then spent three years animating Tom and Jerry and Lonesome Stranger for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a "sketch man", before leaving to start his own comic strip. He created the character of 'Gordo' and sold it to United Features in 1941. This comic strip, set in the Mexican countyside, soon became very popular, and Gus Arriola continued to draw it even when he was drafted for service in 1942. He eventually retired from the comic in 1985.
Gordo was initially designed to be a Mexican version of Li'l Abner, with a highly caricatured style and a lazy overweight title character who spoke in heavily accented English and took naps under a tre