Fete de L’anim: Festival Review
This year’s Fete de L’anim proved to be an overwhelming success. The festival is based in the northern French towns of Lille and Tourcoing. The industrial buildings are over-run with animators from around the world, with an impressive line-up of guest speakers, screenings and workshops.
The international festival starts and finishes with the collective efforts of nineteen animation schools and one professional group, the teams come from across Europe including France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe were invited to take part in this fantastic challenge.
The Marathon
The excited young animators are gather together in La Teinturerie studio space to create 10 seconds of animation each, over a 48 hour period.
This is a massively collaborative project, which offered students a unique opportunity to experience both a creative challenge and to see a range of work from their peers across Europe. The studio was a hive of activity from 2pm on the 13th March when the start image was unveiled (created by Belgium animator Raoul Servais) until 7pm on the 15th March. Many of the teams worked through the night (one French team even slept on the floor) to create their animations. The stints are then edited together with sound and screened at the closing ceremony.
As well as this there was also a Graphic Battle; which encouraged students to pitch their skills against each other within two categories: a 2D digital drawn and 3D digital modelled (zbrush) competition, in a knock out round of talent!
The Master classes
Joanna Quinn, Serge Élissalde, Adriaan Lokman, Patrick Bouchard and Pixar animator Erick Oh all offered up their knowledge in these informative and incredibly intimate programs.
A heavily Pixar themed festival this year, with screenings of most of Pixar most loved feature films on show throughout the festival, master classes and screenings from the wonderful Erick Oh as well as the premiere of Oh’s exhibition His Chamber in Lille.
The master classes offered a fascinating insight in to each of the guests working practice. They discussed their films, storyboards and production photos, which left the audience of animation enthusiasts, students and experts alike far more knowledgeable on each of the speakers work, each presentation was followed by extensive and thought provoking Q&A session.
A personal favourite was the inspiring and charming master class by Mikey Please, in which he discussed his method of working, showing animatics and personal photos that inspired his BAFTA winning film The Eagleman Stag. The audience was given the amazing opportunity to see the ruff cut of his new film Marilyn Myller, it received a great amount of accolade from the audience, a brilliant film from this amazing talent.
As well as this there was a range of activity for the younger audience in the Imaginarium. Which celebrated both Retro games (perhaps to co-inside with Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph) but also offered workshops in stop-motion, storyboarding and much more, helping to make sense of the key principles of animation which will hopefully go on to inspire the next generation of animators.
And that’s not all from this jam-packed festival the 11pm to 4am duration of your visit offered Electro-animated night’s, with electronic music, digital art, dancing and drinking an energetic atmosphere was created, allowing for socialising and discussions to be made alongside the stimulating surroundings.
Screenings galore
As well as the Pixar films and each of the guest animators screening there was also The Best of School screening which showcased a selection of European best student films including the National Film and Television Schools Head over Heels and MOME’s Dipendenza. Through out the rest of the festival there was screenings from each school from the Marathons – which demonstrated diversity in style, influence/inspiration and teaching practices. Many contacts and friendships were made during and after these screenings.
There was full audience for the closing night which offered a fantastic selection of short films from top French directors including Amelie Harrault’s Mademoiselle KIKI et les montparnos and Bruno Collet’s Son Indochine, Michaela Pavlatova created a huge amount of laughter with the sensual short film Tram. To night and festival was brought to a close with the premiere screening of the Marathon challenge film, the end result was a hugely varied melting pot of creative styles and ideas, often comical and surprising- but each stint was individually stunning. Each student represented there country with pride, and left inspired and ready to take on new work or continue their current course work with greater vitality.
Fete De L’anim had a distinctly student vibe to it, making it a great place for young animators to cut their teeth into the animation community. It also offered the guests, tutours and public a great opportunity to see new talent emerging, the future looks engorging for the animation industry.
List of competing groups for Marathon de L’anim
France: PÔLE 3D, Supinfocom, ESAAT, Encole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, E-Art Sup, Cellofan’-Lézards Hâchésb (pro team)
United Kingdom: National Film and Television School, Anglia Ruskin University, Southampton Solent University
Belgium: Howest, La Cambre, La KASK, Beaux-Arts Tournai, Haute Ecole Albert Jacquart.
The Netherlands: St Joost
Germany: Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Eastern Europe: FAMU, MOME