The Cat Piano Blog has a new cradle

Hey everyone.

Thanks for all of your feedback on our film. It's really fantastic to hear what people think of it out there in blogland. Just a quick note to let everyone know that we have a new domain for our blog and it is:

http://catpianofilm.com/

It has a lot more info and links on the film too. We will be taking this blog down in a few weeks so be sure to sign up for feeds etc on our new site.

Look forward to hearing from you more

Watch the whole film now!

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

London, Lithuania, Portugal... Oh My!

More festival news from Ari and I on the Cat Piano front. The film will make it's London premiere, after being officially selected for Raindance Film Festival, the UK's largest independent film festival.

www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=4495

It will also play at Animatu International Digital Animation festival, in Beja, Portugal, a festival dedicated souly to 2d and 3d animated films create on computers.

www.festivalanimatu.com/2009/e_principal.htm

And over in the beautifully picturesque Vilnius, Lithuania, the film will screen in official competition at International Animation Festival Tindirindis.

www.tindirindis.lt/

ATOM FINALIST & AFI SCREENING DATES

I'm very happy to announce that The Cat Piano is a finalist in the ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) Awards, held in Melbourne in October. This is how ATOM describe themselves;

'a professional organisation of media educators and industry professionals who are dedicated to the ongoing development of an innovative and diverse screen and media culture in Australia by providing: debate and analysis through its various publications, both print and online, the ATOM Film TV and Multimedia Awards and a broad range of professional development and training opportunities.'

Our last short film 'Sweet & Sour' was the winner of the Best Short Animation award in 2007.

The finalists should be listed on the festival's website soon.

www.atomawards.org/

Also, the screening dates of the film in Sydney and Melbourne for the AFI (Australian Film Institute) have been announced so if you're still yet to see the film, get along and see it in its full 35mm film print glory.

Melbourne - Sunday 6th September, 2:15pm at ACMI & Monday 21st September at 8:50pm at ACMI

Sydney - Sunday 13th September, 6:15pm at Cinema Paris HOYTS & Tuesday 15th September, 9:00pm, Roxy Theatre, Lindfield.

Or visit the festival's website for more details.

www.afi.org.au/AM/ContentManagerNet/HTMLDisplay.aspx?ContentID=8296&Section=Screenings

Melbourne International Film Festival Win

On Friday night The Cat Piano took out the Best Animation Short Award at The Melbourne International Film Festival. We recived a cool film cannister trophy and a handy cash prize. The Awards are also Academy accredited so this will help us get on the Oscars shortlist. Our film was up against such films as 'Slaves', the contentious animated documentary that won the Grand Prix at Annecy this year, the bizarre low-fi stop-motion short 'The Life of Puppetboy' among others. This marks our third Australian film festival award; the others being at The Adelaide Film Festival and The Sydney International Film Festival.


From left to right - Richard Moore, the festival's artistic director, myself and then sponsor from RMIT, Kristian.


In other festival news the film has also been selected in competition at:

Klik! Amsterdam Animation Festival - HOLLAND
This fresh, fun looking festival is a four day event held in September. The programm of film looks really promising too. Two fellow Australian films have also been selected; Tiny Legs of Fire by Doug Bayne (this was also in Annecy) and Scary Therapy by Suren Perera.

www.klikamsterdam.nl/


Other festival selections for The Cat Piano around the world include;

China International Cartoon & Digital Arts Festival - CHINA
This will mark the film's Asian premiere. Below is a picture of the very cutesy Chinese dragon mascot for the festival.

www.cicdaf.com/


Lucerne Film Festival - Animation Night - SWITZERLAND

ICON SF Festival - Israeli Annual Science Fiction & Fantasy Film Festival - ISRAEL
http://www.icon.org.il/2008/

and we have also been selected in the out-of-competition section at the Ottawa International Animation Festival - CANADA.
http://ottawa.awn.com/index.php

AFI nomination for Best Short Animation

We are proud to announce that The Cat Piano has been nominated for Best Short Animation at this year's AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, Australia's premiere film awards. This is our third nomination; Fritz Gets Rich was nominated in 2005 and Carnivore Reflux in 2006.

Here's a look at the announcement of the four nominees:
http://www.afi.org.au/AM/ContentManagerNet/HTMLDisplay.aspx?ContentID=7854&Section=Non_Feature_Nominees_Production_Information

This will mean that the film will screen in all major capital cities in Australia later in the year and AFI members will have the chance to vote for their favourites.

Also, for those of you in Melbourne, the film will screen three times a part of the Melbourne International Film Festival:
http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=The+Cat+Piano&film_id=11786#article11786

The screening dates are:

Sunday 26th July 2:30pm, Greater Union Cinema 6, Russell Street
Monday 27th July 4:45pm, Palace Kino Cinemas, Collins Street
Friday 7th August 4:45pm, ACMI 2, Federation Square

I'll be heading over for the festival and to take part in the 'Accelerator' young filmmakers programm so come and say hi if you see me after the screenings.

Brisbane International Film Festival

The screening dates of The Cat Piano at this year's Brisbane International Film Festival have been announced.

http://www.stgeorgebiff.com.au/Festival/Films/FilmDetails.aspx?id=345

The short will screen twice before the feature The Beaches of Agnes, on the 7th and 9th of August.

L.A Shorts Screening

The Cat Piano will be screening in competition at the Academy Accredited LA Shortsfest. Here are the details of the screening:

Program #12
Saturday, July 25th, 5:30pm
Laemmle Sunset 5 Theatres
8000 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood

So anyone in the L.A area who wants to see the film on the big screen, get along to LA Shortsfest.

More details of the fest can be found here:

http://lashortsfest.com/content.asp?PageID=2

Scarlett Johanssen will be opening the festival which is pretty cool. I wonder if she likes cats?

Merge Magazine article

Here's an interview I did with a street culture magazine here in Adelaide called MERGE. The questions were pretty cool... which is not always the case. You often get the 'how long did it take?' 'How did you make it move?' questions by some interviewers.

http://www.mergemagazine.com.au/verge/edditewhite

A Dendy Award, Annecy meows & Upcoming screenings

While the Cat Piano team was in France for the Annecy animation festival, back on home soil The Cat Piano was awarded the winner of the Yoram Gross Award for Best Animated Short at the Sydney Film Festival's as part of the Dendy Awards.

http://www.sydneyfilmfestival.org/default.aspx



The film's producer, Jessica Brentnall was there to graciously accept the award on behalf of the film. This award is also an Academy accredited one, which means the film will now be eligible for the Oscars shortlist for best short animation which will then be cut down to the handful of nominees.



The film's screenings at Annecy went great. It was really cool to see a 35mm film copy of it up there on the big screen. It was certainly not a cheap process but worth every cent. The film was screened seven times at the festival, twice in the giant Bonlieu theatre as part of the short film competition programm. Judging from the meows and reows coming from the audience in between the following films, it felt like the film went down a treat with the audience.

We weren't lucky enough to come away with a much coveted Annecy crystal this time but we were certainly on good company. Check here for a full list of the winning films:

http://www.annecy.org/home/index.php?Page_ID=2164

My personal favourites at the festival were 'L'homme a la Gordini' (The Man in the blue Gordini) by Jean-Christophe Lie from France which was a hilarious film set in a gawdy 70's throwback world where wearing pants is a criminal offense; L'Ondee (Rains) by David Coquard Dessault from Canada which was a serious of beautiful, atmospheric snapshots of a rainy day in an urban setting and of course 'Please Say Something' by David O'Reilly and 'Western Spaghetti' by PES.

Here's a couple of snapshots from the gang at the festival. I will post more pics up soon, when the rest of the crew arrive back from France.



Artistic Director of the festival, Serge Bromberg throws us some curly questions at a Q&A as part of the short filmmaker's breakfast, the day after our screening.



Ari Gibson (Co-Director) , Jason Pamment (Art Director) enjoy a beer in the French sun.
The 'Aussies at Annecy' picnic was a great afternoon. Baguettes with vegemite, Fruchocs and Tim Tams and even a few kicks of the Australian Football.

Upcoming Festivals

Here is a list of festivals that the film will be screening in over the next couple of months. Dates and times of the film's actual screenings still to come:

Melbourne International Film Festival (Melbourne, Australia)
http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/

Brisbane International Film Festival (Brisbane, Australia)
http://www.stgeorgebiff.com.au/default.aspx

Anima Mundi Animation Festival (Rio de Janeiro/Sao Paulo, Brazil)
http://www.animamundi.com.br/

Message To Man International Film Festival (St. Petersburg, Russia)

LA Shorts Fest (Los Angeles, USA)
http://lashortsfest.com/content.asp?PageID=2

Small World International Animation Festival (Barnsley, England)
http://www.smallworldfest.co.uk/

Also, please join our fans of The Cat Piano facebook page to be kept in the loop on all related news and info!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cat-Piano/78586590833

LE PIANO DU CHAT D'ANNECY!

The last month has been an exciting one for The Cat Piano team. After the film made its world premiere at the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival we found out we won the Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film. This was a great start to the film's festival life.

Then came the big news. The Cat Piano has been selected in Official Competition at the Annecy International Animation Festival held in the picturesque alpine village Annecy in France. No short film of ours has ever been accepted into the short film competition so we were thrilled to finally b there. Over 1800 animations were entered into the festival and only 40 short films out of that were selected in competition. A group of ten of us; Myself and co-director Ari Gibson, Animators Makoto Koji, Alex Grigg and Benjamin Drake, Art Director, Jason Pamment and editor Jeremy Hill Brooks, will be heading over to the festival in early June to see it screen in the Big Kahuna of Animation Festivals. We congratulate the other Aussies to have something in the festival including Steve Baker with 'Dog with electric collar' in the panorama section and Darcy Prendergast with 'News!' also in the panorama. The PRA have also been selected in the TV special section with 'Ghastly Gourmet - Meat, Meat, Meat' directed by James Calvert and myself (Eddie White).

Here's a short trailer of the film.