Lemonade3d blog

Hi friends!
The time has come to say goodbye to the Balkanima festival, and to friends we found here in Belgrade!
The last day of the international competition proved to be crucial, providing us with the GRAND PRIX winner of the festival- The film ENTER PARADISE FOR 3,30 Euro by Edith Stauber, the Austrian author has united us, in a unanimous vote for the grand prix award.

I think it was wonderful how the author captured the simple pleasure of a dull afternoon at the local swimming pool, in all its ugly, dull , human glory, accompanied by the ring tones of mobile phones left unanswered while its owners basked under the hot rays of the sun.

I felt the film represented the spirit of the festival in its style, approach to animation and subject.

Unfortunately, a few good films got passed by this year, and this is mostly because the format of the Balkanima festival celebrated and promoted a different look and style then shown in those films.  My unofficial tip of the hat goes to our friend Moritz and his film “URS”, which i feel is a great first film which deserves to be on the winners podium. It was a film which the audience recognized, awarding it with a huge applause.

Tomorrow we go to Zagreb, where we will present our work in progress of our upcoming film to the trustee for Animated film Darko Bakliža. Just one more step to finishing our film, which i hope will find itself on the program of the 2010 instalment of Balkanima. I know i will be here, since i have the honour to be invited to hold a workshop in a years time at the BALKANIMA 2010. This means that this is not a goodbye, but rather until we see each other again Belgrade and Balkanima.

Hi to all!

Today started off with  the second meeting between the jury members, to discuss the program so far. We have managed to narrow down the films shown so far to a couple we think are in the race for the grand prix and the various diplomas. I am happy to report no large quarrels or arguments between us in the process. I hope the upcoming days will prove to be as good.

Since five international competition programs had to be shown in a four day span we had quite a long day with two programs shown back to back from 6-10 in the evening. In those hours we saw allot, producing more interesting shorts then the days before. To keep the list short i will mention the interesting animated film with  a comic book feel, that we came to expect and love from the french-FARD.

The film managed to show us how rotoscope does not have to be the ugly sister of animation and can be utilised as a weapon rather then a crutch.

Our Slovenian neighbours produced a short animated film with an interesting render and animation, reproducing in  3d brilliantly the traditional puppet animated visual and style. The film is “Chicory n coffie”

To say a few words and put the festival in its context. Belgrade is a beautiful place to visit and will keep you with your eyes opened if you can navigate the irregular and frustrating buses or opt for a taxi which is not expensive if you can split it with fellow travelers. The Serbian people so far have been open hearted and great hosts. Although it is not a  town made to the measure of a vegetarian, this and perhaps other short comings have been amply compensated by the hospitality and good heartedness of our hosts and friends we got here in Belgrade.

We had the opportunity to see the exhibition of the film stills and concept art for the most expensive feature animated film made in Serbia. The film is called “Edit and I” The stills looked brilliant, and showed a lot of promise, but i am always a sceptic with film made in this region, because as big as the budget might be (and i dont know), i guess it was not enough forcing the author to condens the natural 4 year production time into a two year marathon. I cant help but think how did this effect the final quality? Well, hope i will be shown wrong when i get the chance to see the film, which should be any time now, cos the film is finished and is in theaters in the region

Hi friends,

The second day of competition here at Balkanima continued pretty much as the first- Most of the films filled the average category, in my opinion, allowing for a few surprises. These would be the great first time film and effort from the German young animator Moritz Mayerhofer, who’s final work at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg , short film “URS” shows great promise and is a film which i tough stuck out in the last nights competition-You can read more on the film on the blog, a few posts down.

Besides this, i was captivated with  the animation and visual style of “wings and oars”, by Vladimir Leschiov, but felt in the end the story let down the otherwise great effort by the Latvian author.

This year,  the festival itself is housed at the Student city in New Belgrade- As i understand, this has been its home for all the years, execpt the first two.

With the usual Serbian sense of humor the festival director extended his hat, asking  for donation to fill up the poor pockets not of the festival, but of the government, elaborating that they obviously need help:)

I feel the venue was a good choice as far as the number of people attending the festival, with the theater filed up rather good, but unfortunately the projections suffered- The entire program was played from DVD and the sound could have been better- Lets hope this will be rectified in the following days, or at least for the next years instalment!

With our film winning the GRAND PRIX at BALKANIMA 2008, I had the honour of being invited to come to BALKANIMA 2009 as a jury member for the international competition program. The jury consists of 2 more members- one of them being mr.Priit Parn, who we all know and respect

mr.Parn has been active as a caricaturist and illustrator since the end of the 1960’s. He has done more and more work as a freelance graphic artist since the early 1980’s. Pärn has had over 30 solo exhibitions over the past 12 years in various European countries and Canada.

Pärn has made 10 animated films of duration up to 30 minutes as well as a host of short films, commercials..

The third jury member being  mrs.Maja Volk- Serbian writer, singer, drama professor and play-writer, who delighted us all with the live performance of her Fado band at the opening ceremony.

To go straight to the opening night films, I would single out the brilliant MUTO, of whom i have spoken often on this blog, and an intriguing film

Malban- a french author Elodie Bouedec, portrayed a dream like world of distant memories with a distinctive stile and poetic sensibility.

Stay tuned for the next five days, where i will try and write a few words after every day of this fine balkan festival.