Big Cartoon Festival, Oct.28 - Nov.7
The Moscow Times

On the International Day of the animation - October 28, Big Cartoon Festival - the biggest show of animation in Russia will start. More than 300 short animated films from all over the world will take a part in the Festival 2010. You will see here several times more feature-length films than before. BFM opens with the film "The Illusionist" (film company “Cinema without borders ") by famous Sylvain Chomet, author of" The Triplets of Belleville ". 11 days – day by day all over Moscow, from morning till night you can watch a lot of cartoons for children and a lot of adult cartoons. According to the tradition, our festival coincides with the autumn school holidays. In these days, from 2 to 7 November, six children's cinema theaters in Moscow will take part in a charity program for disadvantaged children and adolescents. Viewers will see the best animation for children, made in Russia in recent years. This year the festival has even more exciting events about the animation. First, we open at the Festival a new project - "Cartoon Factory". In one of the biggest shops of the Factory of technical papers "October" will run a real factory for the production of cartoons, created from paper and paperboard by students of one of Moscow's best film schools - School Studio BALL. In its "departments" there will be lectures and animation workshops for children, you will enjoy a workout with a professional teacher of the actor's speech and try to read out aloud your favorite cartoon, professionals will show new computer programs that convert ordinary cartoon in three-dimensional. In one of the "shops" will be "school of young animators” for just a week, led by Liza Skvortsova, will be meetings with famous artists and directors, the best books for children will be held. And also you could enjoy live music, and, of course, watch a lot of cartoons. Partners of Factory are the magazine «Seasons» and Theatre Festival "Big Break". The adults will find their adventure too: A night of the German animation, accompanied by German cuisine! (Sponsored by the Goethe Institute in Moscow) But also the film program BFM-2010 has a lot of unique things for the visitors of the festival. Like for example Premiere of full-length film of the Czech genius surrealist Jan Švankmajer. Special Project, which will be shown at once three full-length animated "Fantasia": Restored classic Disney film 1940, dedicated his film "Fantasia 2000", filmed 60 years later at Disney, and is also dedicated to the legendary "Fantasia," a satirical picture «Allegro non troppo» (1977) Italian Bruno bozzetti (in addition, in the "Names" you will see a retrospective of this master). Even among the special programs you will see the special collections of foreign relevant documentary and social animation, and a selection of Russian movies on Chekhov. This year we present a Russian studio, Christmas Films ", filmed in 90's and 2000's, along with the British amazing cycles of cartoons on the plays of Shakespeare, the Bible, the operas and fairy tales of the peoples of the world (and was awarded numerous international awards including a nomination for an Academy Award) in the program "Studio". Foreign studio of this year - the British Aardman Animations, which is famous, not only for films about Wallace and Gromit, Shaun Lamb, and" Chicken Run ". At the Festival we will represent the best animation schools of France, with the support of French Cultural Centre in Moscow. In the program "Names" you could find not only great retrospective of the Italian animator Bruno Bozzetti, but a meeting with the Russian maestro Eduard Nazarov, author of the popular movie "There was a dog". Besides two famous Russian artists and directors, and for today they are - foreign celebrities - Peter Sapegin from Norway (with the support of the Embassy of Norway) and Igor Kovalyov from the U.S. especially for the festival will come in Moscow with his retrospective and master-classes. Igor Kovalyov, a friend and colleague of Alexander Tatarsky, who made all the early movies with him - "Plasticine Crow", "Brothers Pilot" and a lot of other things (kids know him on the American TV series "Rugrats") - will bring to Moscow an exhibition of his drawings, it will be held in the Solianka Gallery. The exposition will be great and exciting. there will not only be works of Kovalev, but his permanent artist Dmitry Malanichev (who also works successfully in the commercial animation (in particular, has been artistic director of full-length "Simpsons Movie"). And another director and artist of the old "Pilot" - Alexei Alexeev (who has already won the world love by series about forest musicians Log Jam), who is operating in Hungary now. The general title of the exhibition - "Pilot» from abroad », that is from overseas). Well, as always, the festival program has many events for people interested in animation: Russian and foreign documentaries, archival programs, master classes, lectures - among them a lecture by Yuri Norstein about Gogol, which we have planned at the request of the audience even at the last festival, when Yuri showed his retrospective in the program "Names". We have no Jury at the festival, but we have prizes. So Big Cartoon Festival is a festival for the public, and that’s why the best movie will find the audience for itself. Before entering the hall for the main programs - "Children", "Premier" and "winners" each of viewers will receive a special form where he should select the best movie. November 7 five films will be awarded prizes - Anima-girls statuettes with the logo of the festival. Prizes are made by puppet master and a famous actress Jana Esipovich and by the sketches of artist and producer Ivan Maximov. The movie of our festival this year, too, was made by Natalia Birch by the Maximov’s drawings.