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This year's event took place June 12–17. As I settled in to watch the opening awards ceremony and the first competition program, little did I know that this would be one of my rare spates of carefree animation watching here, thanks to the ASIFA International board and committee meetings which I needed to attend. True to past years, the opening competition program was very strong, ranging from the National Film Board of Canada's Louise by Anita Lebeau which I wrote about in the Annecy 2005 article, Ivan Maximov's Wind Along the Coast which we screened at our two farewell performances in the Bay Area and John Canemakers' Oscar winning film Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation. Following the screening, there was a lovely welcoming party.
Tuesday morning I was all ready to put in another day of heavy duty film watching. Zagreb always offers plenty of wonderful opportunities to see archival films including a Fyodor Khitruk Retrospective. He had been awarded a lifetime achievement award the night before, presented by Eduard Nazarov. It was not only for his extraordinary body of work, but also for his many years of teaching at Soyuzmultfilm Studio. I also got to see Tuesday's program of Competition Films for Children that featured a wide range of films including Russia's Pilot Animation Studio's About a Ram and a Goat (see my Annecy article), Signe Baumane's Dentist (Signe says children love Dentist) and director Roger Allan's The Little Match Girl from Disney (our sugar rush for the day).
I was also looking forward to seeing all of the Student Film Competitions, since I had missed most of them at Annecy due to scheduling conflicts. Alas, this was not to be. Tuesday afternoon was the General Assembly meeting and I had Karl's proxy for ASIFA San Francisco. Of course, after all of the reports were read, there was no time to bring anything else up so I mentioned what topic I wanted to talk about and that I would bring it up at the ASIFA Board Meeting the next day. Karl and I had decided that the ASIFA website was an issue that we were very concerned about. It had become a disaster area through no fault of the two people who have been keeping it up. It is just too much work for them as they are already over loaded with other responsibilities.
I did get to Tuesday nights competition program, which had several worthy films by young film makers mixed with works like The Old Crocodile by Koji Yamamura, who was the Honorary President of the Zagreb Festival this year, having won the Grand prix two years ago. Tuesday night ended at the nightclub in the Hotel Dubrovnik, where Nik and Rolf Bachler played music while the crowd socialized. Rolf is our Swiss animator friend whom many of you met when he performed with Nik and The Sprockets in San Francisco. Wednesday started calmly enough giving no clue as to what was about to occur. I saw the children's program that included Charlie Canfield's Hide and Seek. The film was very well received. Being so tall, Charlie was very visible throughout the festival and whenever I saw him he always looked like he was having a very great time.
At 2 O'clock I presented myself at the ASIFA International Board meeting for what was the beginning of three very heated sessions on three successive days. I don't want to go into details here, but a very important and complicated issue was the decision to create a new position of Executive Director. The exact duties of this person are still under discussion, but this paid position will hopefully generate new revenue from grants and raise the visibility of ASIFA worldwide. (I was shocked when the treasurer e-mailed me that there are only 2,680 members worldwide and that the majority of these come from ASIFA Hollywood, about 1,800 in 2005.) I was appointed to the task force to determine a list of proposed duties for the Executive Director and which my fellow board members are now reviewing and ranking in order of importance to them.
Much time was spent on discussions of Cartoon Magazine, the publication that all ASIFA International members receive, and I also brought up the Web site issue. The upshot of this is that I was made chairman of the web design committee with three very competent and knowledgeable fellow board members. We even had a Saturday committee meeting!!! By the time you read this Karl will have received a call from our committee to ask the San Francisco membership what is important to them in the ASIFA web site.
Last, but not least, there was the great debate over the election of a President. Much to my surprise the representative from Austria nominated me for the Office of President of ASIFA International. I was very honored and I take this nomination quite seriously. I believe that I could do a very good job. The election will be sometime in mid to late September and you will hear more from me about this by e-mail. At present the only other candidate is Nelson Shin, the talented and highly respected Korean animator whose company animates The Simpsons.
The board worked very hard and a great deal was accomplished so I do not fully regret not seeing a lot of animation. That includes a celebration of 50 years of Croatian animation. For many years it was next to impossible for us in the States to view this work. We did break our meeting in time to attend the special luncheon that the Festival had arranged to celebrate the 50th anniversary, but then it was off to my committee meeting.
One welcomed break from the meetings was the party put on by the newly born Platform International Animation Festival. Held at the Sheraton Hotel there was an abundance of food and wine and a chance to visit with old friends. I was so happy to share a drink with Jimmy Morikami who is an old KROK friend and always such a delight to laugh with, and to hang out with Hungary's Suzanna Szabo and Russia's Ivan Maximov. Once again our two man band, Nik and Rolf provided music for the event. I am very impressed with the Platform staff and believe that they will put on a class act festival in Portland in 2007. It is long overdo that America has an animation festival that is truly world class. Animators looking for festivals to enter should give Platform a chance.
On Thursday after more meetings I saw the 4th Grand Competition program which included such tidbits as Rabbit and Paul Bush's While Darwin Sleeps. After the screening we gathered again at the Hotel Dubrovnik where Nik and Rolf were joined by ASIFA East Board Member Ray Kosarin on piano. It looks like we could have an ASIFA board band, perhaps the secret weapon to fill the ASIFA coffers someday.
In years past the Zagreb picnic has been a time for everyone to gather together and have an afternoon of fun. This year the festival grew too large for us to all be put on a bus and taken out of town. My Norwegian pal Gunnar Strom and I saw a void and decided to fill it. We hosted a party/picnic at the Bar Behind the Wall, which is the workers' bar at the backstage of the theatre. It was a place where everyone could get together and relax. With the gracious help of Buba and with monetary contributions from Soyako Kinoshita (Director of the Hiroshima Animation Festival and acting President of ASIFA International until the elections are completed), David Ehrlich, and Gunnar; amazing French cheese from Nicole Solomon, and other food contributions from Buba and myself, we had a lovely gathering.
By Friday night's competition screening I was totally exhausted and slept through most of the films. At midnight we all walked over to the beautiful Pavillion Gallery of Arts for the formal Festival Good Bye Party. Once again there was a lavish spread of food and drink in a classic, elegant setting complete with lovely salon piano music provided by a Zagreb pianist, and a chance to just talk and relax.
Zagreb is a fascinating city and two years ago I took time to wander around charming streets and markets. This year I hadn't seen anything in the city except screening rooms, meeting rooms and parties. Saturday morning Rolf and I took off for a delightful amble about the city ending up in the lovely market. Unfortunately duty called and we had to go back for a meeting of the website redesign committee.
Saturday evening was the awards ceremony followed by a reception for ASIFA International members and their guests in the ASIFA International Board Room. Vesna Dovnikovic, the invaluable Secretary General of the ASIFA International Board, hosted the event. Even though Vesna had a lot more work heaped on her with the unexpected extra board sessions, she was all smiles and a very gracious hostess. She presided over a lovely event. It was wonderful to see veteran British animator Bob Godfrey, who was everywhere at the festival with his very proud grandson, talking to old friends and young animators alike and laughing his wonderful laugh.
The final dinner was at the rustic little restaurant behind the festival building (where you could always find groups of animators eating and drinking). It was a large gathering with tables pushed together into two long rows. Joanna Quinn and her family were there proudly displaying her brand new Grand Prize award, as well as Bob Godfrey, Jimmy Murakani and Phil Mulloy, just to name a few of the illustrious artists present.
For late night music and conversation, we retired to the Hotel Dubrivak where Nik and Rolf were joined by Serbian animator Rastko Ciric who plays a very mean piano. They played Beatles and Beatles-like music as Rastko recreates John Lennon in the performance art piece The Rubber Soul Project. It is documented in a hilariously entertaining film of the same name. Some very good music was heard that night.
There was a wedding party in progress in a nearby alcove. They liked the music so much that they sent wine over to the band and later invited everyone to join them for food, drink and dancing to Mp3's. I can only imagine what they will think in years to come when they look at wedding party pictures full of crazy animators that they had never seen before dancing with their guests.
Sunday morning Rolf, Nik our two dogs Molly, Kirby and I on were on the road to the beautiful Croatian coast with a brief stop at the Zagreb flea market on the way out of town. (By now there was so much dog hair in the car that we all felt like part of a pack.) It was so nice to know that we would not have to go to another meeting that Rolf and I just kept laughing insanely at anything and everything. Nik once again proved what a patient person he is! The scenic coast proved to be just what we all (dogs included) needed, walks along the coast listening to the waves, swimming in an ocean that was the perfect temperature, sitting and watching the hermit crabs move with the tides and dinners overlooking the water to a backdrop of magnificent sunsets. All too soon we were on our way to drop Rolf off in Zurich and to head home to Gent. It was a wonderful two months on the road, but now it was time to settle down to work in our new home. On 5 August I leave for my annual pilgrimage to KROK.
all text© 2006 Nancy Denny-Phelps