2017 edition of the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film kicks off with screening of Tomer Eshed’s animated feature, ‘Our Wonderful Nature: The Common Chameleon,’ and ‘The Head Vanishes’ by Franck Dion.
Tomer Eshed’s ‘Our Wonderful Nature: The Common Chameleon.’
STUTTGART, GERMANY -- The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film is now underway! The 24th edition of the festival running May 2-7 alongside Germany’s FMX Conference on Animation, Effects, VR, Games and Transmedia, kicked off Tuesday night with an opening ceremony led by festival directors Dittmar Lumpp and Prof. Ulrich Wegenast with honorary guest state secretary Petra Olschowski (Ministry of Science, Research and Art of Baden-Württemberg) and Lord Mayor Fritz Kuhn (Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart). The sold-out event was live-streamed, with roughly 5,000 people watching online.
L to R: ITFS Managing Director Dittmar Lumpp, State Secretary Petra Olschowski (Ministry of Science, Research and Art of Baden-Württemberg), Lord Mayor Fritz Kuhn, Waltraud Ulshöfer & Prof. Ulrich Wegenast. © Reiner Pfisterer.
This year’s International Competition -- which received upwards of 2,000 submisisons from more than 80 countries -- started with a screening of Tomer Eshed’s animated feature, Our Wonderful Nature: The Common Chameleon, preceded by The Head Vanishes by Franck Dion from France.
For six days, ITFS will present more than 1,000 animated films in a program packed with more than 200 events. In addition to animated features and shorts, this year’s edition will spotlight games and music as well as Augmented and Virtual Reality. Sara Diamond and Brian Collins, part of the Google Spotlight Stories team, are set to present the film Pearl, the first animated VR movie nominated for an Oscar. Paul Barritt proves with his pre-premiere Cat & Mouse that theater and animation match perfectly. The enlarged GameZone in the Kunstgebäude shows the importance of animation in computer games, with more than 100 games exhibited over a 2,000-square-meter space for testing. And with the cooperation partner Breuninger the ITFS plays the façade with an Augmented Reality Game in the motto of the Festivals Trailer. Animation is everywhere and borderless.
Under the organizing theme of “Animation without Borders,” this year’s edition will also include screenings of current animated features like Finding Dory, Kung Fu Panda 3, Ice Age: Collision Course, Storks, and Studio Ghibli’s When Marnie Was There. See more program highlights at “ITFS Unveils 2017 Program Highlights,” and on the ITFS website.
Source: Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
