Michel Ocelot’s animated feature Azur and Asmar will open October 17th for a one-week run at the IFC Center in New York City. This film, from the director of Kirikou and the Sorceress, was picked up by The Weinstein Company last year and never got a wide theatrical release. GKIDS is presenting the US Premiere engagement of of the film as part of it’s ongoing New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Upcoming festival features include Sita Sings The Blues (with Nina Paley in person) playing Nov. 8th and 9th at the IFC Center, and Lotte from Gagetville (Estonia) January 24th at the Symphony Space. For ticket information click here.

Attention Angelenos! Nina Paley’s incredibly wonderful full length feature film Sita Sings The Blues will have its Los Angeles Premiere in glorious 35mm at the RedCat Theatre (within the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown) on Monday night October 13th at 8:30pm. For details and tickets click here.

I saw the film, twice, in Ottawa and I’m absolutely wild about it. And here’s why: It’s a perfectly realized, solid piece of work. Visually beautiful, extremely entertaining, it has so much going for it I really can’t think of anything I’d change about it.

The film tells the story of Nina’s ill-fated long distance relationship (and eventual break-up) to a boyfriend who was transfered to India on business. This part of the film is animated and drawn in Nina’s comic-strip, bigfoot style (above). She intercuts this story with the Indian legend of Ramayana - this told by three off-screen Indian contemporaries who hilariously try to remember all the little details. This part is animated in a paper cut-out collage style, using all manner of Hindu commercial imagery and iconography — not unlike Ward Kimball’s pop-art educationals (Music, Space, Birds, etc.). Within the Ramayana sections, Paley re-imagines certain plot points as elaborate musical-fantasy sequences, animated with Max-Fleischer-meets-UPA designs (see image below) set to a soundtrack of vintage 1929-era Annette Hanshaw recordings. Imagine Betty Boop in a Bollywood musical and you are close the mood Paley achieves.

And it all works. It works as a full length feature - It’s not a short stretched to fill over an hour. The film has a simple but strong personal story narrative, which many can relate to. It’s so clearly an independent film, not the tired product of a factory made, committee driven studio. Did I mention this film was made by one person, over a five year period, on her home computer? That fact alone makes Nina’s achievement here even more incredible - and refreshing.

Above it all, it’s fun. The film seems so effortlessly enjoyable in that same way all classic animation feels. I urge you to see the film when you can (in L.A. that means Oct. 13th at RedCat) and support Nina’s efforts to recoup her production expenses and find distribution. Sita Sings The Blues is an accomplishment to be celebrated by all who love animation.

“That’s all.”

I alluded in an earlier Brew story that Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) wasn’t happy with his short-lived directing stint on Universal’s upcoming Tales of Despereaux. He was fired from the project shortly after the film received a production greenlight. An article in this weekend’s NY Times includes a lot of nasty allegations from Chomet, including the assertion by him that the film’s producer Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) wanted to direct the film “but because he can’t draw, he had to use me in order to get the green light.” Chomet also says that after he was fired from the film, “these bodyguards, big nasty-looking guys in suits, showed up; they took everything out of the studio and nailed doors shut so we couldn’t have access to it.” But the article’s most colorful Chomet quote is this one:

“We’re making a film for kids, a film that has a moral, and behind it is such aggressive action about lawyers and legal things — there are no human relationships. I felt like a lemon; they got the juice out of me and threw me away.”

Based on everything I’ve read and heard about Chomet, he doesn’t necessarily sound like the most easy person to work for, but it’s difficult not to admire a director who stands up for what he believes in and demands that films be filtered through his personal point of view. Directors, like Chomet, who aren’t afraid to speak their minds and actually have something to say are a rare breed in animation, and if anything, we need more artists like him.

(Thanks, Carolyn Bates)

The Seward Street blog, run by a DreamWorks animator, notes that Chris Sanders is no longer directing Crood Awakening at DreamWorks and he’s working on another film at the studio. The animator writes:

Chris Sanders is now the director on the next film I’m working on, How to Train Your Dragon. Dean DeBlois is coming on as a writer as well. Have to admit, I always liked Lilo and Stitch, so this is pretty exciting.

The previously announced director of How to Train Your Dragon was Peter Hastings, a producer/writer on Animaniacs and director of The Country Bears live-action feature. Can somebody say improvement.

UPDATE: The original post was removed from his blog.

UPDATE #2: A representative from the law firm representing Chris Sanders sends in the following information: “Our firm represents Chris Sanders, and can confirm that he remains the director of CROOD. He will also be taking over HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON.”

Amid and I are still in Ottawa immersed in animation. One film we haven’t seen is Igor, which opened all over the U.S. and Canada this weekend. Did you see it? How was it?

Today’s L.A. Times features a story on Waltz With Bashir, the sure-to-be-controversial animated feature from Israel, being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival tonight, and at the Ottawa Animation Festival on September 17th.

Waltz With Bashir is a documentary, spoken by veterans of a 1982 invasion of South Lebannon, woven into a narrative containing shocking violence (the film is a hard “R” rating) and potent graphic images. I had the opportunity to screen the film last week. It’s an effective anti-war film and a strong denouncement of the Israeli Army. The powerful story it tells transcends the technique - the animation is not the point here, it’s simply the medium to communicate the message. We all know animation is not just talking animals and can do more than tell jokes. Here’s a film that proves it. I admire Bashir, not as an animated film, but as an important film with significant things to say, that leaves you with lots to think about. It also pushes the artform into a bigger arena of filmmaking potential and points towards the possibilities of where else it can go.

Last year Joe Dante (Looney Tunes Back In Action) established a terrific website called Trailers From Hell, featuring audio commentary by several top genre directors (including John Landis, Stuart Gordon, Eli Roth, etc.) over some of their favorite vintage guilty-pleasure horror, fantasy and science fiction film trailers. They’ve tackled animation only once before - Yellow Submarine (with comments by George Hickenlooper) which we linked to here back in April.

Dante produced one other animation trailer for the site, with director Mick Garris (Showtime’s Masters of Horror, HBO’s Tales From The Crypt) commenting on Chuck Swenson’s 1977 X-rated animated feature Dirty Duck (aka “Cheap”). This trailer proved a little to hot for Joe’s domain so he’s graciously allowed Cartoon Brew to exclusively post it. It’s perfect for our readership - Dirty Duck is one of the most overlooked animated features of the 1970s, a glorious experimental mess of a film, which, from today’s vantage point, looks incredibly creative and daring, and something current Hollywood studios would never attempt.

For more Trailers From Hell click here.

A 35-minute collection of classic Saul Bass film titles with narration and insights by Bass himself:

(via Smashing Telly)