Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 6, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Top stars at this year’s 16th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (5 to 10 May 2009) are a crafty dog, a gluttonous panda and an inquisitive robot. The three film characters each appear in the feature-length animated films “Bolt” (German distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany), “Kung Fu Panda” (Universal Pictures International Germany) and “WALL-E” (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany), respectively, and will be seen at the animation festival. All three titles are also contenders in this year’s race for the coveted Oscar statuettes in the Best Animated Feature category.
The tongue-in-cheek ecological utopia “WALL-E”, made by the legendary animation company Pixar and already awarded a Golden Globe in early January 2009, has also been selected by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the additional Oscar categories Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score and Best Original Song (“Down to Earth” by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman).
As a “real” guest, the Stuttgart International Animation Festival is expecting “Bolt” co-director Chris Williams. Two further members of the team, Paul A. Felix (Art Director) and Adolph Lusinsky (Look and Lighting Director), will also provide insight into the production of Bolt. Also invited in May is Israeli animator Michael Faust (Stuttgart Award for Best Student Film “Beton” in 2006). Faust worked on the Israeli-French-German co-production “Waltz with Bashir”, which is an entry in this year’s open-air programme. At the latest since winning its Golden Globe, “Waltz with Bashir” has been considered a strong contender for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Feature Film.
Last but not least, the Stuttgart Animation Festival can also boast promising Oscar nominations in the short-film field. The playful French production “Oktapodi” (Talantis Films, directed by Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand) screened last year in the festival’s International Competition and Young Animation sections. For 2009, the likewise Oscar-nominated titles “La Maison en Petits Cubes” (Robot Communications Production) by Japan’s Kunio Kato and the blackly bilious gravedigger satire “This Way Up” (Nexus Production) by Britons Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes have been included in the International Competition programme.
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony takes place on 22 February 2009.
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