8th Australian Film Festival- Synopsis
Feature Films
MARY AND MAX
Director: Adam Elliot
Writer: Adam Elliot
Producer: Melanie Coombs
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Stop motion claymation
Voice cast: Toni Colette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries, Eric Bana
Duration: 92 mins
Synopsis:
Mary and Max is a claymated feature film from the creators of the Academy Award winning short animation Harvie Krumpet. A simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne; and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York. Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Official Selection and Opening Night Film, Sundance Film Festival, 2009
Grand Crystal Best Feature, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2009
Best Feature Animation, Ottawa Animation Festival, 2009
Best Feature Animation, Stuttgart Animation Festival, 2009
Crystal Bear Special Mention, Berlin Film Festival, 2009
Best Direction in a Feature Film, Australian Directors Guild Awards, 2009
Best Screenplay, Queensland Premiere’s Literary Awards Australia, 2009
LOOK BOTH WAYS
Director: Sarah Watt
Writer: Sarah Watt
Producer: Bridgit Ikin
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Live action and hand-painted animation
Cast: William McInnes, Justine Clarke, Anthony Hayes, Lisa Flanagan, Andrew S. Gilbert, Daniela Farinacci, Sacha Horler, Maggie Dence, Edwin Hodgeman, Andreas Sobik
Duration: 100 mins
Synopsis:
An innovative mix of animation and live action, set over a scorchingly hot weekend, when people dealing with unexpected events find their lives intersecting. Nick visits a doctor for a routine medical and is given a devastating diagnosis but has to wait until Monday for specialist advice. Meryl, returning from a funeral, has until Monday to finish her project or lose her job. Andy is thrown by his girlfriend’s ultimatum and has to consider the news of her unplanned pregnancy. The convergence of their paths creates an intriguing picture; intimate, universal and uplifting.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Australian Film Institute Awards: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Original, Best Supporting Actor, 2005
FIPRESCI Prize, Brisbane International Film Festival, 2005
Discovery Award, Toronto International Film Festival, 2005
THE MAGIC PUDDING
Director: Karl Zwicky & Robert Smit
Writer: Greg Haddrick & Simon Hopkinson and Harry Cripps
Producer: Gerry Travers & Edward Trost
MTRCB Rating: G
Technique: Traditional paper-drawn and digital animation
Voice cast: John Cleese, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Jack Thompson, Hugo Weaving, John Laws, Toni Collette
Duration: 76 min
Synopsis
Almost a century after the first book was published, Norman Lindsay’s Australian children’s classic, The Magic Pudding, has finally come to life on the big screen. A unique animated feature about Albert, a magnificent magic puddin’ who can turn himself into just about anything - with a rather cantankerous temperament and an exhausting habit of always running away but never running out. Oh, and everyone is trying to steal him…
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
2001 London Australian Film Festival
Bristol Animation Festival
Taormina International Film Festival
Short Film Suite
BIRTHDAY BOY
Director: Sejong Park
Writer: Sejong Park
Executive Producer: Australian Film, Television and Radio School
MTRCB Rating: G
Technique: 3D Computer-generated Imagery (CGI)
Voice Cast: Joshua Ahn, Sook Lee
Duration: 9.5 minutes
Synopsis
Set in 1951 during the Korean War, little Manuk is alone and playing at being a soldier, making his own toys on the empty bombed streets of his village. He imagines life at the front where his father is a soldier. He returns home to find a parcel on the doorstep and, thinking it is a birthday present, he opens it. But its contents will change his life forever.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Oscar® Nomination, Animated Short Film, 77th Academy Awards, 2005
Winner, Best Short Animation, BAFTA Awards, 2005
Winner, Prix Jean-Luc Xiberras for Best First Film, International Short Film Competition, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2004
FOOTNOTE
Director: Pia Borg
Writer: Pia Borg
Executive Producer: The Victorian College of the Arts, School of Film and Television
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Stop motion and 2D Digital collage
Duration: 6 minutes
Synopsis
In a monotonous world, two alienated characters mysteriously transfer symbols to unravel tradition and authority.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Cannes Film Festival, Cine Foundation 2004.
Sydney Film Festival, Dendy Awards 2004
International Animation Festival in Japan, Hiroshima 2004
HARVIE KRUMPET
Director: Adam Elliot
Writer: Adam Elliot
Producer: Melanie Coombs
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Stop motion claymation
Voice cast: Geoffrey Rush
Duration: 22 minutes
Synopsis
Harvie Krumpet is the biography of an ordinary man seemingly cursed with perpetual bad luck.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Oscar® Winner, Best Animated Short Film, 75th Academy Awards, 2003
Annecy International Animated Festival, 2003: Prix FIPRESCI , Prix du public, Prix special du jury
Valladolid International Film Festival, Special Jury Prize, 2003
MOTHER TONGUE
Director: Susan Kim
Writer: Susan Kim
Producers: Susan Kim , Anne Shenfield
MTRCB Rating: G
Technique: Computer animation (Painter)
Voice cast: Anita Beckham
Duration: 5.46 min
Synopsis:
A man receives audiocassettes from his family overseas. Their voices measure the real and imaginary distances between them.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Winner, Best Australian Film, Melbourne International Animation Festival, 2003
Winner, Best Animation, St. Kilda Short Film Festival, 2003
Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2003
MOZZIE
Director: Dylan Yeo
Writer: Dylan Yeo
Producer: Jane Keneally
MTRCB Rating: G
Technique: Combined live action and computer animation
Cast: Kev Damon Eggleton
Duration: 8 mins
Synopsis
An evil entreprenuer discovers the real price of his actions. A tale for all ages about fluorocarbons, global warming and radical brain surgery.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Best Student Film, Australian Animation & Effects Festival, Australia, 2000
Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2000
Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, 2000
Cannes Film Festival, 1999
THE MYSTERIOUS GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS OF JASPER MORELLO
Director: Anthony Lucas
Writer: Mark Shirrefs
Producers: Susie Campbell, Anthony Lucas, Julia Lucas
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Computer animated characters over photographic collaged backgrounds
Voice cast: Joel Edgerton, Helmut Bakaitis, Tommy Dysart, Jude Beaumont, Lewis Fiand
Duration: 26 minutes
Synopsis
Set in a world where airships are made of iron and computers are powered by steam, this gothic horror mystery tells the story of Jasper Morello, a disgraced aerial navigator, who flees his plague-ridden home on a desperate voyage to redeem himself. The expedition through vast unchartered skies is filled with horrors but in a shocking climax, Jasper discovers that the greatest horror of all lies within man himself. Made entirely in silhouette, the film is an epic steampunk story in the gothic tradition of Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Oscar® Nomination, Animated Short Film, 78th Academy Awards, 2006
Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2005: Le Cristal D’Annecy - Grand Prix
50th Anniversary Prize, Valladolid International Film Festival, 2005
THE PROJECTIONIST
Director: Michael Bates
Writer: Michael Bates
Producer: Anna Messariti
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Pixilation, or live-action animation.
Cast: Russell Garbutt
Duration: 13.5 minutes
Synopsis
An aged projectionist leaves the cinema where he has worked for many years for a long walk home. He has just projected his last film. The streets are empty, but they are also full—of memories, many of them painful. We witness a gallery of ghostly visions, projections of his past, spectres of loved ones and visions cast upon walls and empty windows. Dramatically set to the haunting and melancholic music of The Isle of the Dead by Sergei Rachmaninov, The Projectionist is about memory and personal suffering.
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Winner, Grand Prix, Tampere, 2003
Silver Spike, Valladolid International Film Festival, 2003
WARD 13
Director: Peter Cornwell
Writer: Peter Cornwell
Producers: Trephine Productions, Norma Cornwell
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
Technique: Stop motion animation
Voice cast: Brett Hicks-Maitland, Ren Klyce
Duration: 14.5 minutes
Synopsis
After a car accident, Ben wakes up in hospital. Not knowing where he is or what is going on, he starts exploring the corridors...only to find that the doctors don't have his health in mind. The hapless patient must pull himself together and do everything he can to escape. Ward 13 is an action-packed horror-comedy, ending with the wheelchair chase from hell!
Selected Awards and Festival Screenings
Oscar® Nomination, Animated Short Film, 77th Academy Awards, 2005
Winner, FIPRESCI Prize (Federation of International Film Critics), Valladolid International Film Festival, 2005
Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Jean-Luc Xiberas Award for Best First Film, 2005