News

Zombillenium announced as opener; China named as guest country, Guillermo del Toro to return.

French animator and illustrator Arthur de Pin’s child-friendly comedy-horror tale Zombillenium (pictured) - set against the backdrop of an amusement-terror park were the staff are a motley crew of vampires, zombies and werewolves - will open this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, running June 12-17 this year.

It is among nine special event screenings including Pixar’s Cars 3, which will be proceeded by a presentation of footage from Mexico-set, Day of the Dead-inspired drama Coco in the presence of director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson and co-director Adrian Molina; Despicable Me 3 and The Big Bad Fox And Other Animals.

Zombillenium will also compete in the 10-title feature film competition.

Other contenders for Annecy’s Cristal for best feature film include Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s Tehran Taboo, exploring sexuality...

Chloe Moretz and Asa Butterfield will be reteaming for the film The White Circus, which is being executive produced by Terry Gilliam. The film will be a dark fairy tale that has been described as an "adventure-romance that takes place on a snowy New Year’s Eve, when a young pilot crashes his plane into a war-torn town on his first mission. There, he falls in love with a beautiful cabaret singer, befriends a talking circus bear and incites the townsfolk to liberate themselves from a despot."

The movie is being helmed by first time feature film directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, who were described by producer Gregoire Melin as being "worthy heirs of Gilliam, Jim Henson and Tim Burton," adding that "their work boasts an ever bigger crossover appeal while being smart and innovative." They directed the Oscar-nominated animated short Madame Tutli-Putli, which you can watch below. It...

Chloë Moretz has been cast in The White Circus.

The Kick-Ass actress will star in Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's feature directorial debut, reports Variety.

The dark fairytale will reunite her with Hugo co-star Asa Butterfield.

Terry Gilliam will serve as executive producer on the tale of a fighter pilot who crashes into a war-torn town on New Year's Eve.

He befriends a beautiful cabaret singer and a talking bear and helps the townsfolk rise up against their despotic leader.

Andrea Riseborough and Christian Friedel will also feature in the film.

Lavis and Szczerbowski are best known for their short films Higglety Pigglety Pop! and Oscar-nominated Madame Tutli-Putli.

Moretz will next be seen in Kimberly Peirce's Carrie remake and comic book movie sequel Kick-Ass 2.

The White Circus will begin shooting in Germany and Serbia in February 2014.

Watch a trailer for Carrie below:...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences brings you the Oscars (yep, that's why they're called Academy Awards), and on Friday, the organization announced that it was prepared to invite 176 new folks to its fold.

In a list posted on its website, the Academy deemed Matthew McConaughey, Jean Dujardin, Terrence Malick, Jonah Hill, Berenice Bejo, Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer and a host of other film luminaries worthy of inclusion in its nearly 6,000-member army.

The Academy has drawn the ire of critics who bemoan its overwhelmingly male, white population. A Los Angeles Times investigation found that of all Academy members, 94 percent are Caucasian and 77 percent are male. A mere 2 percent are black, with Latinos constituting an even smaller portion. Only 14 percent of members are under the age of 50.

Full members of the Academy select and vote on Oscars nominees. The organization was started in 1927 and is now governed by a 43-person board.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences extended their 2012 membership invitations today to 176 lucky actors, directors, cinematographers, and other members of the filmmaking industry.

Terrence Malick, who somehow wasn’t already a member, received an invitation, as did fellow directors Rodrigo Garcia and Asghar Farhadi.

For actors, Melissa McCarthy’s invitation continues her incredible post-Bridesmaids rise. In addition, actors Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Andy Serkis, Jessica Chastain, and Octavia Spencer were all invited to be members, among others.

Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003, according to the Academy’s website.

HollywoodNews.com: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 176 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2012 to the Academy’s roster of members.

“These film professionals represent some of the most talented, most passionate contributors to our industry,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “I’m glad to recognize that by calling each of them a fellow Academy member.”

Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003.

The 2012 invitees are:

Actors

Simon Baker – “Margin Call,” “L.A. Confidential”

Sean Bean – “Flightplan,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”

Bérénice Bejo – “The Artist,” “Oss 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”

Tom Berenger – “Inception,” “Platoon”

Demián Bichir – “A Better Life,” “Che”

Jessica Chastain – “The Help,” “The Tree of Life”

Clifton Collins,...

It's a match made in heaven. Clyde Henry Productions - the professional nom de plume of directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szcerbowski, Oscar nominated for their stunning short film Madame Tutli-Putli - are using the music of archetypal post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor as the basis for their new short, L'Annee De L'os. A seven minute experiment of sound and form it's truly remarkable stuff in a completely different style from what you might expect. Just wrapped and soon to start on the festival circuit, they're holding back any footage for the time being but they have offered up a pair of stills from the short. Check them below.

Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze's ambitious feature, based on the Maurice Sendak classic, led Todd Gilchrist to write: "Where the Wild Things Are is most effective because it faithfully recreates the dimensions of childhood experience, but it filters them through the realities of adulthood. As an understated work of spectacle, or maybe a spectacular work of understatement, Jonze's latest film is not only his best to date, but a monstrous achievement in its own right - with or without the big furry creatures." Buy it.

The Blu-ray disc includes a bonus film: the too-adorable and super-cute adaptation of Sendak's Higgelty Pigglety Pop! -- the latest short from Madame Tutli-Putli filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. Meryl Streep voices a dog who leaves her master to find a new life and become a star for the World Mother Goose Theater. (Spike Jonze and Forest Whitaker also lend their voices.

Update - A touch of technical trouble forbid us from loading up three quick excerpts from this new short film. But now all is well and you really need to see these clips!

The Oscar nominated directors of Madame Tutli-Putli are at it again with another whimsical short film Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life. Based on the book by Maurice Sendak it features the voice talents of Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker. It will be featured as an exclusive short on the Where the Wild Things Are Warner Home Video Blu-ray out March 2.

The full press release and photo gallery is after the break.

Spike Jonze has produced a new live-action/animated adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life. The film, a collaboration between the National Film Board of Canada and Warner Home Video, will be included on the Blu-Ray release of Where The Wild Things Are, which hits stores on March 2nd. The 23 and a half minute short film was created by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, the Oscar-nominated team behind the short Madame Tutli-Putli, and features the voices of Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker and Spike Jonze. Once Jennie had everything. She had two bowls to eat from, two pillows, and for cold weather, a red wool sweater. She even had a master who loved her. But Jennie didn’t care. In the middle of the night she packed everything she had in a black leather bag with gold buckles and looked out of her...

3D isn't only for the movie theaters and televisions, folks. In commemoration of the first anniversary of their online screening room (yesterday!), the National Film Board of Canada is sending out free 3D glasses and launching two new sections of their site to offer viewers goodies in both 3D and HD. This adds to the 1,400+ titles already available for free viewing on the website.

The 3D section is kicking off with the shorts Falling in Love Again, Drux Flux, Sandde, and Facing Champlain, plus a number of making-of feature for Champlain. On the HD side of things, there's a little more variety. While Cordell Barker got his latest short, Runaway, screening at Sundance (brief review here), his Oscar-nominated 1988 short The Cat Came Back is on the site, along with flicks that include the 1965 short High Steel, Chris Landreth's Oscar-winning Ryan, the 2007 Oscar nominee Madame Tutli-Putli, and The Stratford Adventure,...

Tomorrow the famed Studio Ghibli is to announce their next full length feature film. Following up Miyazaki's Ponyo, will it be Paku-san's (Takahata Isao) long longed for comeback film? Or perhaps will it be by their new director about whom producer Suzuki told some time ago (rumoured to be Yonebayashi Hiromasa)? Well, the latter might certainly be the case as two days ago Suzuki noted the director is 36 years old and that his animating skill is the best in Studio Ghibli. He didn't expect to be become a director, but nowadays though Miyazaki often sits next to him to encourage him. Either way, more news tomorrow at GhibliWorld.com, but for now it's a good excuse to spice up this Twitch-o-Meter with the animated flavor of five random works worth checking out.

Summer Wars

This ToM won't reside in the land of the rising sun though, as Hosoda Mamoru's latest...

We’ve written in the past about the Cinema 16 series of short film collections and the series returns with a collection titled simply World Short Films that may very well boast the most recognizable collection of names yet on this impressive, eclectic series. Who’s involved? Guillermo Del Toro, Park Chan Wook, Andrea Arnold, Sylvain Chomet, Alfonso Cuaron, Guy Maddin, Jane Campion, Alexander Sokurov, and while you may not recognize the film makers’ names you’ll certainly have heard us talking about stunning Canadian stop motion short Madame Tutli-Putli in these pages if you’ve spent much time around here at all.

By Michael Atkinson

Chances are you've never seen a wholphin (a rare hybrid of dolphin and false killer whale), or a Wholphin, the short film DVD magazine emanating on a subscription basis from the Dave Eggers/McSweeney's publishing factory. But it might be the most relentlessly fascinating and inventive showcase for new short films in the country. Not that it has much competition . shorts can appear haphazardly on auteurist-minded DVDs or on public television or the Sundance Channel, but otherwise there's no dependable cultural outlet for them, and they are for the most part considered cinema non grata in the culture at large. Movies began in the short form, but quickly shorts became nothing more than ballast for features, and then, come the '60s, were not even that. (Anthology-style TV series may count . think of each "Twilight Zone" episode as a 24-minute short . but look how that format has...

Screenings for the 2008 Sxsw Film Festival (as well as our coverage here at Ifc.com) will carry on as the music contingent rolls into Austin, but last night, the winners of the jury and audience awards were announced.

Daniel Junge's "They Killed Sister Dorothy," about the murder of activist Dorothy Mae Stang, received both the jury and audience prizes for best documentary, while on the narrative side, Jake Mahaffy's "Wellness" and Mark Webber's "Explicit Ills" were given nods by the jury and by the audience. Here's a full list of the winners:

Narrative Feature

Grand Jury Award: "Wellness," dir. Jake Mahaffy

Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast: "Up With Me," dir. Greg Takoudes

Special Jury Award for Cinematography: "Explicit Ills," dir. Mark Webber

Documentary Feature

Grand Jury Award: "They Killed Sister Dorothy," dir. Daniel Junge

Special Jury Award: "Full Battle Rattle," dirs. Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss...

For a third consecutive year, the 10 Oscar-nominated shorts hit the theatrical circuit thanks to Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International.

They're nearly all films whose craftsmanship and detail fill the big screen, and to varying degrees their stories compel. The shorts arrive in about 50 cities today, with the Rain Network providing digital distribution.

Among the five live-action nominees, three deal in some aspect with the everyday world of work. Italy's The Substitute, by Andrea Jublin, is a spirited 17-minute collision between a typically self-absorbed group of teens and the strangely confrontational man who's subbing as their teacher -- and who has a hidden agenda that's as much about his own needs as theirs. For all its energy, the film is more concerned with an idea than characters and leaves the least impression of the bunch.

But the office drones in the Belgian film Tanghi argentini are vividly drawn. Before his date with a woman he met online, nebbishy Andre (Dirk van Dijck) enlists the help of an aloof colleague (Koen van Impe) for tango lessons. Elegantly lensed and crisply edited, the 14-minute tale unfolds with wit as the unlikely duo perfect terpsichorean flourishes amid the filing cabinets. The film by Guido Thys provides a nice twist.

For the hapless protagonists of The Mozart of Pickpockets, the workday involves city streets and acts of petty crime. French writer-director Philippe Pollet-Villard co-stars with Richard Morgieve, and their terrific sad-sack chemistry as these clownish thieves gives the half-hour its punch. Their luck changes after a homeless deaf boy latches on to them, but it's a less-than-convincing narrative element.

The two most affecting live-action entries are the spare Western The Tonto Woman (U.K.) and the heartrending hospital-set drama At Night (Denmark). The former, based on a story by Elmore Leonard, centers on a high-plains Hester Prynne (Charlotte Asprey), a woman physically marked by her Mojave captors and ostracized by her community after her release. She finds unexpected human connection in the form of a Mexican drifter (Francesco Quinn). The half-hour film by Daniel Barber uses archetypal widescreen desert vistas to strong effect.

In a far different setting, three young women have formed a community within the coolly lit rooms of a cancer ward in At Night. The 43-minute film by Christian E. Christiansen is direct and intimate but never maudlin. Restrained performances by Julie Olgaard, Laura Christensen and Neel Ronholt -- and Henrik Prip as one girl's father -- have a devastating emotional power.

The animated contenders deliver an array of imaginative narrative filmmaking. I Met the Walrus (Canada) is the exception in the sense that it's a documentary snippet. Josh Raskin uses audiotape of John Lennon, recorded in 1969 when 14-year-old Jerry Levitan sneaked into the Beatle's Toronto hotel room and coaxed an interview out of him. In its brief five minutes, the film free-associates line drawings and other playful 2-D visuals to Lennon's down-to-earth intelligence and subversive humor.

Offering its own brand of playful subversion is France's Even Pigeons Go to Heaven, by Samuel Tourneux. A wily priest-cum-huckster, brandishing a list of his would-be customer's sins, urges an old man to buy a contraption built of "celestial titanium" that's guaranteed to transport him to heaven.

A mood of dark mystery pervades another Canadian entry, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's Madame Tutli-Putli. The silent claymation fantasy unfolds on a night train, where a woman in cloche and pearls, surrounded by her precariously stacked belongings, faces her fears. The imagery is rich with texture and atmosphere.

Four-time Oscar nominee Alexander Petrov (who won for The Old Man and the Sea) takes a classical approach in My Love, a fever dream set in 19th century Russia, where a pampered 16-year-old boy is attracted to his glamorous neighbor and his family's good-natured servant. At 25 minutes, the piece feels a bit long, and its melodrama is not always absorbing, but with their watercolor shimmer and nightmare depths, the impressionistic visuals are fluent.

Most successful is Peter & the Wolf (U.K.-Poland), by Suzie Templeton, which fills its affecting half-hour with a delightfully rendered array of human and animal characters. Precisely choreographed and edited to Prokofiev's music, the piece is a ballet both comical and poignant and a triumph of CG personality.

• Now in their third year and one-week prior to Oscar night, Magnolia Pictures and Shorts Internation have come up with the ingenious idea of putting out the yearly Oscar-nominated short films in the Live Action and Animation categories (10 in all) first in theaters and quickly followed up by a DVD release. It's a nifty initiative on their part and great incentive to check out the short film form without needing to check out a load of other crap.  We'll be profiling a good chunk of the 10 filmmakers listed below with our monthly feature: Short Film Corner. Look for the 10-collection in theaters starting on the 15th in over 50 theaters across the U.S. Two thumbs up for you Magnolia! The nominated Live Action Shorts are: At Night; Denmark, Oscar® Nominees: Christian E. Christiansen & Louise Vesth. Three young women share their problems while spending the holidays in a hospital cancer ward.

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• The Toronto International Film Festival Group (Tiffg) announced this year's top ten Canadian feature films including higher-profile pics and items from a set of new-comers. In addition, this year's group of 10 is actually a group of 20 - they've included a ten-list of short films as well. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's Madame Tutli-putli (whom we featured here on Ioncinema.com - read our Q and A with the pair of filmmakers here) is the short film that has fairly great chances at making an appearance at this year's Acamdey Awards. The top ten list is part of a series of Q&As by filmmakers and panel discussions to be held in Canada's cap - from January 25 to February 5 at Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto. In alphabetical order:l’ÂGE Des TÉNÈBRES – Denys Arcand (Alliance Odeon Films)Amal – Richie Mehta (Seville Pictures)Continental, Un Film Sans Fusil – Stéphane Lafleur (Christal Films

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• It’s no coincidence that the Sundance Festival Short Film Program had to sift through a lot more short films this year – video filmmakers are popping out from everywhere and filling the web with viral video content. A whopping 5,107 submissions were submitted and a total of 83 were programmed for the upcoming edition of the 08 fest. While more doesn’t necessarily mean better, the stuff I’ve seen at the last two editions easily demonstrates that there is some great talent to explore and in the case of Apple's iTunes Movie Store, Xbox Live and the Netflix – talent to exploit. The trio of companies will promote the films throughout the year, but for those not going to the fest you can check for daily uploads at www.sundance.org/festival Among the already popular submissions are a pair of new works from Ken Wardrop, Julia Kwan - a Canadian filmmaker

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• In art there is no boundary. In artists there are no limits. Such has proven the case for Chris Lavis and Maciek Szcerbowski as the award winning pair brings their first professional film to life in Madame Tutli-Putli, a brilliant stop action short. The 17 minute short tells the tale of Madame Tutli-Putli as she boards the night train into an abyss of worlds that merge between reality and illusion. The trip progresses from day to night, drawing her deeper into the metaphysical world where all is not as it appears, and what is unseen is just as important as what is there.Lavis and Szcerbowski founded Clyde Henry Productions, a Montreal-based film and production company in 1997. The company primarily functions as a multimedia, stop-motion animation and visual effects company, garnering awards and acclaim for their work in music videos and their serial comic The Untold Tales of Yuri Gagarin,

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