Organization’s Animation Educators Forum awards support individuals or groups with their research, scholarly activity, or creative projects in animation.
ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Educators Forum (AEF) announced six recipients of this year’s AEF Faculty Grants program, selected from a pool of talented educators from Australia, Canada, the West Indies, Wales, and the United States.
The AEF scholarships provide support for individuals or groups with reasonable expenditures associated with research, scholarly activity, or creative projects in animation. Grants are open to full- and part-time faculty at accredited post-secondary institutions.
The 2023-24 AEF Faculty Grants recipients are:
Catriona Baker, Associate Professor and Chair of Animation and VFX at Lesley University’s College of Art and Design, Massachusetts, U.S.:
- Grant will support her 2D fine art frame-by-frame animated short film Ball Lightning, a story following a German refugee who immigrated to the United States, after being forced to leave behind her infant daughter during WWII.
Mari Jaye Blanchard, Associate Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, U.S.:
- Grant will support the completion of her animated short film (re)TIRED, a 2D hand-drawn animated short film exploring themes of aging, employment, and the planet’s changing climate.
Mindy Johnson, award-winning author and Adjunct Professor at California Institute of the Arts, California, U.S.:
- Grant will support development to bring century-old artwork by the earliest known female animator to life for her documentary film, The Only Woman Animator – Bessie Mae Kelley & Women at the Dawn of Industry.
Stephan Leeper, Professor of Animation at Central Michigan University, Michigan, U.S.:
- Grant will support development of The Creation Poem Project, an 8-minute animated film with original musical score and spoken-word performance based on James Weldon Johnson’s well-known African American poem.
Sujin Kim, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, Arizona, U.S.:
- Grant will support completion of her 3D animated short film Cunabula, a story of a mixed-race adoptee’s struggles for acceptance into society in the aftermath of the Korean War.
Zachary Zezima, Associate Professor at California State University, California, U.S.:
- Grant will support animation work on his short documentary film The Inevitable Return of an Atomic Being, which explores the effects of military technology and atomic testing on surf culture in the United States.
ASIFA-Hollywood, the largest chapter of the Association Internationale du Film d’Animation (International Animated Film Association), supports various animation activities and preservation efforts through its membership. Current initiatives include the Animation Archive, Animation Aid Foundation, Animation Educators Forum, animated film preservation, special events, scholarships, screenings, and the annual Annie Awards.
More information about ASIFA-Hollywood can be found here.
Source: ASIFA-Hollywood
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
