Ben betwixt fests

As I froghop from Animafest in Zagreb to Annecy (in, y'know, Annecy), here are a couple of interviews worth sharing.

In episode 72 of the podcast we welcome Eva Cvijanović, director of the National Film Board of Canada/Bonobostudio short Hedgehog’s Home that, on top of playing in the Annecy competition this week (with Anima Mundi to follow in July), recently picked up the Animafest Audience award, understandably so as it was easily the most enthusiastically-received film that played at the fest).
A graduate of Concordia University, Eva’s independent film work includes 2010’s Once Upon a Many Time and 2013’s Seasick. Her work with the NFB began with her participation in the seventh edition of the Hothouse apprenticeship scheme, for which she made The Kiss (2011). Since then she has created the micro-short Survival of the Fittest (originally produced in 2014 and released this year as part of the NFB’s Naked Island series) with Hedgehog’s Home, a stop-motion adaptation of Branko Ćopić’s classic children’s book, being her most ambitious film project to date.
Also discussed in this episode: Annecy anticipation, the quasi-controversy of Red Shoes, Emoji Movie emoting and the gloriously dubious VFX of Twin Peaks. Stream above or direct download here.

I've also today put up a written interview with the film's co-producer Jelena Popović about her involvement in the films as well as some other recent projects including Chintis Lundgren's Manivald, Sheldon Cohen’s My Heart Attack, Theo Ushev’s Blood Manifesto and the recent NFB micro-shorts series Naked Island. She's a tremendous person doing tremendous things so please do take the time to check out the piece and look into some of what she's been up to, you'll be glad you did:
Producing Animation: Jelena Popović
Right, off to get in some lake time before press duties commence. Happy heatwave, everyone!

Peaks and Valley

Couple Skwigly updates, we have a new contributor Simmon Keith Barney whose first piece puts forward some interesting ideas about how to approach alternate frame rates for your animation projects. Good food for thought and I kinda wish I'd read it before I embarked on my current film Sunscapades which I made the increasingly regrettable decision to animate all on 1s. Give it a read here and see what you think.

In episode 68 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we welcome Robert Valley, director of the original Vimeo animated documentary short Pear Cider and Cigarettes.
Developed from his own self-published graphic novels and produced by Cara Speller of Passion Pictures, the film tells the true story of Valley’s attempts to keep his childhood friend from destroying himself, a task that grows increasingly difficult as time wears on. Earlier this month Pear Cider and Cigarettes picked up an Annie Award for Best Animated Special Production and is among this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short.
Also discussed in this episode: BAFTA wins, Oscar nominees, recent National Film and Television School output and the questionable necessity of a Beauty and the Beast remake.

Last week on the site I spoke with Montreal-based director Eva Cvijanović, whose Branko Ćopić adaptation Hedgehog's Home (produced with the NFB and Bonobostudio) premiered at Berlinale recently and is a real treat for stop-mo enthusiasts. Click the link below to learn more:
Interview with Eva Cvijanović
It's only briefly touched upon in the interview but something that struck me about this film is that it makes great use of Kenneth Welsh's propensity toward broad character performances, something that was horribly misused when he was in Twin Peaks. Basically he came in pretty late as a sort of replacement bad guy who was all set up to be kind of Hannibal-esque and ended up more like a panto villain. Then Lynch directed him in the last episode and he was genuinely brilliant. Goes to show how many people involved in that series just didn't know what they were doing (says the guy whose directorial experience comes to less than an hour's worth of animated shorts). Anyway, he's very good in this is the point.

I'm gearing up for the inevitable Twin Peaks rewatch before the new series starts in May. I love Lynch and am probably in the minority when I say that Fire Walk With Me is my favourite film of his, but only about a third of the actual TV show's episode really matched up to either as far as my personal enthusiasm went. Plus because I loved the film so much I remain annoyed that David Bowie and Keifer Sutherland's characters never appear in the show, although I gather Harry Dean Stanton's will in the new ones so that's a brownie point already. Basically I'm hoping the new show will be Fire Walk With Me: The Series, something that would leave a lot more hardcore series fans than not pretty disappointed, I imagine.
No idea why I'm typing all this. Ah, I'm procrastinating again. That'll be it.
OKAY. Back to work.