16 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture, Peanuts, Rob Yulfo

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Longtime readers of this blog know I have a “thing” for retro-style cartoons – i.e. new animated shorts that faithfully mimic a past era of animation. Today I’m proud to present the Internet premiere of one of the best I’ve ever seen: Fernando Miller’s Flea and Fly in City Troubles.

The film follows the antics of two homeless urchins in Rio, recreating the look and feel of late 1920s cartoons by mashing the styles of Otto Messmer with Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, with a pinch of Tex Avery and a nod to Tezuka (Broken Down Film, in particular). However Miller’s film is not simply a clever homage to old cartoons. It addresses real life problems of poverty and street children in modern day Brazil. Flea and Fly’s antics echo innocent behavior of 80 years ago, updated to reflect today’s realities: They sniff glue instead of drink booze; they also smoke, steal, bathe in public and urinate in the street.

I asked Miller, who works as a freelance animator in Rio, to explain the origin of his film:

“I had the idea for the film about 12 years ago. I was on a bus in Rio, my hometown, and there was this bunch of street kids on it, laughing out loud, slaping each other, screaming out of the window calling people names, and all this sort of things kids like to do to have fun. But the other people on the bus seemed terrified, as if those 10, 11 years old boys were about to shoot them or something. Everybody was so scared with the violence in the city, and the problem of abandoned kids living in the streets of Rio, that no one noticed, above all at that moment, that those were just kids acting as normal kids. On the other hand, those same people would smile at those exact same things while watching old fashioned cartoons – like Katzenjammer Kids – thinking about how inocent kids were at that time! So I wanted to show that things were not that different from the past, and try to create the same sympathy for nowadays kids, despite of the terrible situation they live in.

“That big church in the beginning and the end of the film is Candelaria Church, were in 1993 six street children got killed by police officers. It was a famous and terrible massacre every Brazilian knows well.

“All the places in the film do exist. Here’s a curious fact for animators: those two building behind the man selling food are where Animamundi Festival takes place. It’s across the street to Candelaria Church.”

With the current critical and artistic success of the live action “silent” film The Artist, perhaps Miller’s cartoon is coming out at just the right time. It would certainly make an appropriate short to accompany that feature. It sheds light on an important social issue with unusual finesse. Here, fresh from the festival circuit, is Flea and Fly in City Troubles:

16 Comments »   posted in Shorts, Brazil, Fernando Miller

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New trailer for Nick Cross’s One-Man Feature “Black Sunrise”

January 16, 2012 6:00 pm

The new year brings a new trailer for the Nick Cross feature Black Sunrise. Nick tells us he has ten minutes completed. Every new image intrigues and excites us. I predict this will be well worth the wait:

21 Comments »   posted in Feature Film, Nick Cross

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“The Adventures of Tintin” Wins Golden Globe

January 15, 2012 7:00 pm

Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon Movies’ The Adventures of Tintin won the Best Animated Feature prize at tonight’s Golden Globe ceremony in Beverly Hills. Director Steven Spielberg accepted the award (video below) and seemed genuinely surprised.

How about you? Did you expect Rango, Puss In Boots, Arthur Christmas, or perhaps Cars 2 to win this award? Do you think a Golden Globe award will help Tintin’s chances with Oscar or Annie voters?

74 Comments »   posted in Awards, Golden Globes, The Adventures of Tintin

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“The Prophet”

January 14, 2012 1:00 pm

Yesterday, Deadline Hollywood posted about Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa Productions signing animation director Roger Allers (Lion King) to supervise an ambitious independent feature based on Khalil Gibran’s 1923 classic The Prophet. Allers will oversee the entire film – and will direct the opening, closing and bridging sequences – which will combine the work of a who’s-who of renown international animators.

The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays on life and the human condition. It’s divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Already signed on (or in discussions) to participate: Tomm Moore (The Secret Of Kells), Sylvain Chomet (The Illusionist), John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Chris Landreth (Oscar-winning short Ryan), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog) and Kunio Kato (Oscar-winning short Tsumiki No Ie). This “Super Bowl of animation” begins pre-production later this month – and is certainly one we will keep tabs on.

25 Comments »   posted in Feature Film, Bill Plympton, Marjane Satrapi, Nina Paley, Roger Allers, Sylvain Chomet, Tomm Moore

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“Swing Of Change”

January 12, 2012 12:05 am

Harmony Bouchard, Raphael Cenzi, Joakim Riedinger and Andy Le Cocq, students at France’s ESMA School of the Arts (Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques), wanted to make a film dealing with racism “through the music in New York of the 30s”. Swing of Change is that film:

8 Comments »   posted in CGI, Student, Andy Le Cocq, ESMA, France, Harmony Bouchard, Joakim Riedinger, Raphael Cenzi

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