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Ok, this film isn't forgotten. It's extremely well-remembered by enthusiasts of European animated shorts. I'm just assuming that means most of us haven't heard of it. It's the most celebrated work by Belgian filmmaker Raoul Servais, but has a haunted, Eastern European feel reminiscent of Jan Švankmajer's sinister pixillations. A man rescues a strange bird-woman from an assailant, striking him down and taking her home. Once there, she becomes a domineering monster, ruining his life until he himself is driven to attempt her destruction, at which point the narrative comes full and vicious circle...On the face of it, the film is a misogynist fable, a phantasmagoria on the theme of Henry Higgins' lament "Let a Woman in Your Life." The story closely resembles that of Jenifer, a short horror story adapted by arch-misogynist Dario Argento for the series Masters of Horror. And yet Harpya doesn't seem that offensive. Maybe...

Strand will focus on the history of Cannes for the festival’s 70th anniversary.

Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.

Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.

This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.

Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...

While Cannes Film Festival premieres some of the best new films of the year, they also have a rich history of highlighting cinema history with their Cannes Classics line-up, many of which are new restorations of films that previously premiered at the festival. This year they are taking that idea further, featuring 16 films that made history at the festival, along with a handful of others, and five new documentaries. So, if you can’t make it to Cannes, to get a sense of restorations that may come to your city (or on Blu-ray) in the coming months/years, check out the line-up below.

From 1946 to 1992, from René Clément to Victor Erice, sixteen history-making films of the Festival de Cannes

1946: La Bataille du Rail (Battle of the Rails) by René Clément (1h25, France): Grand Prix International de la mise en scène and Prix du Jury International.

Presented by Ina.

Zombillenium announced as opener; China named as guest country, Guillermo del Toro to return.

French animator and illustrator Arthur de Pin’s child-friendly comedy-horror tale Zombillenium (pictured) - set against the backdrop of an amusement-terror park were the staff are a motley crew of vampires, zombies and werewolves - will open this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, running June 12-17 this year.

It is among nine special event screenings including Pixar’s Cars 3, which will be proceeded by a presentation of footage from Mexico-set, Day of the Dead-inspired drama Coco in the presence of director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson and co-director Adrian Molina; Despicable Me 3 and The Big Bad Fox And Other Animals.

Zombillenium will also compete in the 10-title feature film competition.

Other contenders for Annecy’s Cristal for best feature film include Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s Tehran Taboo, exploring sexuality...

Exclusive: Companies are currently in post production on second feature Phantom Boy [pictured].

Here in Berlin, it has emerged Belgium’s Lunanime is to make its third feature with French animation powerhouse Folimage.

Lunamine and Folimage first collaborated on international box office hit, A Cat In Paris (2010). They are now in post production on their second feature together, Phantom Boy.

Now, here at the Efm, Lunamine’s Annemie Degryse confirmed the two companies will be working on a third project.

Lunamine (the animation arm of leading Belgian distributor) and Folimage will partner on Tulip. This will again be directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli. It will be shot in the same carefully crafted style, using hand drawn animation, as its two predecessors.

Tulip tells the story of an 11-year old girl who sees monsters - at first she is terrified of these visions, but she soon learns they are actually a gift she inherited from her grandmother...

Why Watch? Peculiar, dreamlike and perfect for a Friday. This short film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1979, most likely after the entire jury was slipped acid tabs. Raoul Servais‘ mustachioed story blends Belle Epoque with Vaudeville style to create the top layer of antique bliss, but the real magic comes from front projection techniques and a black velvet background. The effect is mesmerizing. Movement isn’t fluid, but it doesn’t feel as jerky as early stop-motion, so it lives in a middle ground that perpetually confuses the eye. There’s also the fantastical nature of the tale itself — one where a man finds a bare-breasted Harpy in a fountain and takes her home only to find that she’s incredibly hungry. Partially horror and partially a surreal trip with pommes frites on the side, it’s the kind of metaphorical movie you can only watch with an eyebrow raised high. What...

Why Watch? Well, because Steven Spielberg calls it the “Citizen Kane of animated film.” That’s not enough for you? Here goes. One Froggy Evening is among the best of Chuck Jones‘s cartoons, recognized by the National Film Registry along with Duck Amuck and What’s Opera, Doc? It’s the first appearance of Michigan J. Frog, American cinema’s most influential singing and dancing amphibian. The top-hat wearing vaudevillian toad starts out in a box, hidden in the cornerstone of a just-demolished building. The innocent construction worker who finds him can the piles of cash waiting to be collected before his eyes (literally, because this is a Chuck Jones cartoon), and rushes him off to an entertainment agency. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. We all know the story: the frog never performs when he needs to, and everyone thinks that the poor sap selling him is a lunatic. It...

I love Paul Driessen. Very long ago (1977!) when I was head of acquisitions and international sales for the Santa Monica based short film distributor Pyramid Films, we had Paul Driessen's wonderful short animation, The Killing of an Egg (02'50 / Holland 1977). We sold it to businesses who were holding meetings for inspiring sales, bolstering morale, to schools and libraries. It became one of our best selling shorts. In 2000 he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short 3 Misses.

And now the Dragon of Dragons Award, the award for life achievement granted annually by the 53rd Krakow Film Festival to be held May 26 to June 2, 2013, goes to the Dutch-Canadian animator Paul Driessen.

The Krakow Film Festival is one of the oldest film events dedicated to documentary, animated and short fiction films in Europe. Among previous winners there are such well-known artists as Kazimierz Karabasz, Allan King, Albert Maysles, Werner Herzog, Stephen and Timothy Quay, Raoul Servais, Jerzy Kucia and Jonas Mekas. Last year, for the first time a woman - Helena Trestíková, the author of the famous documentary Rene, become a laureate.

Paul Driessen was born in 1940, in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. He drew cartoons from an early age, in 1964 he graduated from the Art Academy in Utrecht and was offered a job as an animator at a commercial animation film & TV studio in Hilversum, near Amsterdam. In 1967 he was invited by George Dunning to work on his Beatles’ story “The Yellow Submarine”, which now is considered a forerunner for modern intertextual animations for adults like “Shrek”, “Futurama”, “South Park” or “The Simpsons”.

In 1970 Paul Driessen emigrated to Canada and started a freelance animation career, working mainly for the National Film Board of Canada. Since 1976 he also animated and directed many of his films for independent producers in The Netherlands. Driessen's unique style can be easily recognised by the incessantly wobbling lines and smooth movements of his characters. As a narrator he often uses split screen technique, while keeping the story integrated.

In the 1980s Driessen started teaching animation at the University of Kassel, Germany, after Jan Lenica. He continued till 2005 and under his guidance two of his student's films, "Balance" (1989) by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein, and “Quest” (1996) by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach, won Academy Awards.

Paul Driessen has won over 50 international awards for his work. He was honored with life achievement awards at the animated film festivals in Ottawa (1984) and Zagreb (2002), in 1987 Asifa Hollywood presented the Annie Award to him for "his distinguished contribution to the art of animation". In 2005 he was given the Special Golden Dinosaur Award at the Etiuda & Anima Film Festival in Krakow. In 2000 his short film, interlocking three tales of damsels in distress, “3 Misses” earned him an Oscar nomination.

Lately he wrote and illustrated a couple of books - “The Fiddle Fumble Stories” series, typical of the style which characterizes the rest of his work. Paul Driessen is currently working on a new animated short, a coproduction between Canada and The Netherlands.

Paul Driessen Website

Filmography:

“The Story of Little John Bailey” (6', The Netherlands 1970)

“Le Bleu Perdu” (7', Canada 1972)

“Air!” (02'00 / Canada 1972)

“Au bout du Fil” (“Cat's Cradle”) (10', Canada 1974)

“Une Vieille Boîte” (“An Old Box”) (9', Canada 1975)

“David” (7', The Netherlands 1977)

“The Killing of an Egg” (2', The Netherlands 1977)

“On Land, at Sea & in the Air” (10', The Netherlands 1980)

“Jeu de Coudes” (“Elbowing”) (6', Canada 1980)

“Home on the Rails” (“Treinhuisje”) (10', The Netherlands 1981)

“Une Histoire comme une Autre” (“The Same Old Story”) (3', Canada 1981)

“Oh what a Knight” (3', The Netherlands 1982

“Spotting a Cow” (“Het Scheppen van een Koe”) (6', The Netherlands 1983)

“Tip-Top” (7', Canada 1984)

“Sunny Side Up” (“Spiegeleiland”) (3', The Netherlands 1985)

“Traingang” (1'), “Getting There” (1') (Expo Vancouver, Canada 1986)

“The Writer” (“De Schrijver en de Dood”) (12', The Netherlands 1988)

“Uncles & Aunts #1” (2', The Netherlands 1989)

“The Water People” (24’ & 13', The Netherlands-Japan 1992)

“Uncles & Aunts #3” (3', The Netherlands 1992)

“The End of the World in 4 Seasons” (12', Canada 1995)

3 Misses (10', The Netherlands 2000)

“The Boy who saw the Iceberg” (12', Canada 2000)

“2D or not 2D” (17', Canada-The Netherlands 2004)

“2D or not 2D -The ShortCut” (12', Canada-The Netherlands 2004)

“Oedipus” (13', Canada-The Netherlands 2011)

Participation:

“The Yellow Submarine” (feature length / Tvc, UK 1969)

“Tiki-Tiki” (feature length / Potterton Productions, Canada 1970)

“The Happy Prince” (27', Potterton Productions, Canada 1974)

“Le Rejeton” (12', Onf, Canada 1977)

“Anijam” (15', International Rocketship, Canada 1985)

“Elephantrio” (9', Nfb, Src, Canada 1986)

“Candyjam” (6', J. Priestly, Canada 1988)

“Pink Komkommer” (11', International Rocketship, Canada 1991)

“Paul Driessen Inside-Out” (52', Documentary, The Netherlands 2002)

“The 7 Brothers” (12', Kaj & Paul Driessen / CinéTé, The Netherlands 2008)

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Kff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/krakowfilmfest

Kff on Blip: http://krakowfilmfestival.blip.pl/...

Paris -- The Annecy International Animation Film Festival will blow out its 50th birthday candles this year with a different toon thanks to a colorful slate of all-star guests, including Jeffrey Katzenberg, Matt Groening and Ari Folman, plus several international film premieres and professional conferences, organizers confirmed Monday. The fest kicked off Monday.

Folman will head the Feature Film Jury, which will vote on competition titles from across the globe -- this year with a particularly Asian flare. Titles include Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," Tarik Saleh's "Metropia," Dominique Montery's "Kerity la maison des contes," Liu Jian's "Piercing 1," Mamoru Hosoda's "Summer Wars," Munehisa Sakai's "One Piece Film: Strong World" and Jean-Christophe Roger's "Allez raconte!"

This year's official selection will showcase 213 films in competition including features, short films, TV movies, educational programming, commercials, music videos and student films.

Organizers have gathered more than 50 animated personalities to...

POSITANO -- Despite a broad international presence among nominees at the ninth annual Cartoons on the Bay, animated programming from Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network walked away with a number of Pulcinella Awards when they were announced at an awards show here Saturday evening. Cartoon Network's "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" won the Pulcinella nod for best TV series for all audiences. "Foster"'s also was awarded the best character of the year award for Bloo, which the five-member jury described as "a simple and yet expressive character who may be small but is big on personality." Nickelodeon, meanwhile, walked away with the Pulcinella award for the best TV series of action and adventure as well as the best TV series -- both of which were awarded to "Avatar the Last Airbender". The jury said they honored "Avatar" for its "overall quality and integrity and the potential that the series promises." The panel was presided over by Belgian author Raoul Servais and included representatives from Walt Disney Television Animation, the Cartoon Network, Germany's ZDF and Italy's RAI networks.