We were all tucked in with our producer David Christensen and our publicist Nadine Viau (don’t ask) at the Best Western in Park City Utah when the Academy Award nominations were announced at 6:30am. Here’s how it went:
Sundance
We spent five fascinating days at the Sundance Film Festival, and two days after we returned home we were gobsmacked to find that we had won the award for Best Animated Short.
The Flying Sailor didn’t play in the animation program - nstead we were screened with a group of exceptionally strong live action shorts. It was such a pleasure to spend time with our fellow filmmakers - Andrew Fitzgerald (The Family Circus), Melena Valdez (Weapons and Their Names), fellow Canadian Nicole Bazuin (Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie), Samm Hodges (Tender) and the amazing Vincent Fontano (Set Lam).
Rounding out the festival fun was the presence of our new pal Tom C. Brown, creator of the wonderful animated film “Christopher at Sea.”
Flying All Over!
The Sailor has been getting around (as sailors will do) since we last posted. He won both the Character Based’ and Experimental categories at the Los Angeles Animation Fest, Silver at Toronto After Dark, and Best Animation at the New York City Short Film Festival. He’s also been to the American Film Institute Festival in LA, The New Chitose Festival in Japan, the Valladolid Festival in Spain, among others.
Next he’s off to Sundance at the end of January, and we’re going with him!
Best of all, The Flying Sailor was chosen for the New Yorker Screening Room! As dedicated New Yorker readers (they are piled up all over the house) we were particularly thrilled to be part of this fine magazine.
VIFF next!
The Flying Sailor will play in Vancouver at VIFF on October 6th and 9th.
And Another Thing
Last night we attended our Calgary hometown premiere of The Flying Sailor, where we won Best Animated Short! CIFF is a lovely festival and we’re very pleased to receive this award.
Flying High in Ottawa!
I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist that “flying high” subject line. Shameful, really.
Anyway! We just returned from the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where we won the Canadian Film Institute Best Canadian Animation Award. The jury described the film as follows:
”For its striking, inventive combination of animation styles and its thoughtful, poetic evocation of the dignity of humanity in times of catastrophe.”
The Flying Sailor is headed to TIFF!
Playing Sept. 8 & 15.
The Sailor in Cypress
Annecy was a bust for us (yes - Covid) but in August The Flying Sailor picked up 1st place in the narrative category at Countryside Animafest Cypress, and we were delighted. The poster alone makes us sorry we missed it. Camping! Animation! Cypress!
A Sailor Flies to France
After three years in production we finished our new film, The Flying Sailor, at the NFB in Montreal in February. It will have its premiere in France at the Annecy Festival in June, and we’ll be there. I can’t think of a better place to fledge a film.
Calgary Atlas Project
The Calgary Institute for the Humanities is producing a series of maps which depict lesser known or forgotten stories of Calgary’s history, expressed as maps. There are currently six maps (they hope to create as many as twenty), depicting everything from a First Nations perspective on Stampede to Calgary’s Queer history. We were fortunate enough to land the task of depicting the city’s many lost cinema treasures (as well as the survivors.) We love the whole project and are thrilled to have been included. You can buy the maps at independent book sellers all over the city!
Calgary Goes to the Movies!
Caelestis Alberta Premiere!
Caelistis, our third collaboration with the Alberta Ballet, premieres in Calgary February 13 -16 and in Edmonton Feb 22 - 23 as part of the de.Vi.ate program. Come if you can - it’s going to be a corker of an evening!
Coming Right Up!
The 11th edition of the Bleak Midwinter Film Festival is happening on February 17t. If you're in the vicinity you ought to come. We'd be delighted to see you, and we promise a FUN time.
Is it a lifetime already?!
We just got back from LA after having received a "Lifetime Achievement" Award at the Annies. We still have quite a bit of work to do to deserve such an honour, but we'd have to admit we're pretty pleased anyway.
Water, water everywhere....
We've just uploaded two more Suntory spots here, at the bottom of the page - Suntory Swimming and Suntory Bike. They're two of our favourites, aesthetically speaking.
A BLEAK Decade
It seems we've been hosting the Bleak Midwinter Film Festival for an entire decade - and despite the title it has been a flat out wonderful experience. If you're in Calgary on Feb. 25th, please join us for the celebration - animated films, live music and a wingding in the church basement afterward. We'll have food by the one and only Sidewalk Citizen, and beer from the neighbourhood's coolest new arrival - The High Line Brewery! It's February - we're all sick of winter - the Bleak is here to cheer!
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765...
That's the Fibonacci sequence above, and it's the inspiration for a new half hour ballet which will premiere in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre in honour of Canada's 150th birthday - and we're the fortunate people creating the projections. We're quite giddy about this, because we get to collaborate with the super-talented composer Andrew Staniland , the always inspiring Jean Grand-Maître, and 10 of his incredible dancers from The Alberta Ballet. We love collaboration and live performance - and we're SO happy to be involved.
The programme will also include new works by Emily Molnar of Ballet BC, and Guillaume Côté of the National Ballet of Canada. It will be a great evening.
ENCOUNT3RS at the National Arts Centre - April 20 - 22, 2017. Tickets are on sale now.
Upcoming...
Vancouver International Film Festival
Wow - the genuine Kook and Legend, Marv Newland, has included Wild Life in his programme at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year.
http://www.viff.org/festival/films/f19176-kooks-and-legends-animated-motion-pictures-curated-by-marv-newland
Oops...we let the ol' website slide!
Well, there has been a certain low-grade anxiety burgeoning in the backs of our brains for a while now, and it must be because we haven't updated our website since early last year.
This Friday we are curating a show with the marvelous Beakerhead (sorry, those of you who don't live in Calgary) all about the art and engineering of short animated films. The show is called "Bleakerhead or...Labours of Love and Technology". We've made a poster for the occasion and you can buy a very pretty limited edition silk screened print from Beakerhead!
Oh - and we ought to mention that over the past two years we have done more commercials for Suntory Water in Japan. You can see some of the results on our Suntory page. It's probably worth mentioning that apparently our young English gentleman did not die in the snow at the end of Wild Life! He just moved to Japan and got into advertising.
Annie Awards coming up!
To our surprise and delight, one of our latest commercials, Suntory Water: Wind (produced for Dentsu, Japan, by Acme Filmworks) is nominated for the Annie Awards, which take place on February FIrst in Los Angeles.