Hasta La Motion!

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival and its Market (Mifa) has announced an extensive set of market offerings and activities, ahead of the 2019 Annecy Film Festival in France next month.

According to the organizers, the 2019 Mifa is on the verge of being the biggest in history, and will include an expanded market, a 1500m² platform, more than twice its size last year, with a conference room by the lake, a bigger VR area, and a private Mifa beach.

Following are the features that the 2019 Mifa will present:

Gap Financing: Meet the Producers: Mifa provides support to feature film producers in the final stages of development or in production with at least 85 per cent of their budget secured by offering them the chance to find new partners through targeted meetings.

Buyers’ Club: set up in a new dedicated area specifically for buyers to provide them with what they need for meetings and to make it easy to view video content.

A bigger and better VR area: twice the surface area reserved for studios and companies presenting their latest technological inventions as well as plenty of space to view and experience XR, with no less than 200m² available.

Pitching – Territory Focus: in addition to the Industry – Territory Focus showcasing a country’s or region’s industry, these sessions offer the chance to discover new talent through presentations about current projects in development.

In the spotlight this year, Japan will arrive in force with a 214m² booth.

Nora Twomey is the guest of honor for the third edition of Mifa Campus. Following Guillermo del Toro and Richard Williams, Twomey will present on Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 9:00am.

Besides, Mifa will also run a recruitment drive from 11 to 14 June 2019 and some of the notable recruiters present will be Netflix, DreamWall, Jam Media, Zeilt Studio, Laika and Unit Image.

Mifa pitches will run from 12 to 13 June 2019 and its divided into five categories: Feature films/Short films/TV series or specials/Interactive and transmedia creations/animation without borders.

Other essentials at the event include TV channel press conferences, demo sessions and market screenings among others.

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Dean DeBlois

Dean DeBlois, writer, director and executive producer of this year’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, and PUBG Corporation CEO Changhan (CH) Kim, will give keynote addresses and are the first conference speakers announced by director Maria Elena Gutierrez for the curated 2019 symposium. Speakers include directors, studio heads, animators, game developers, visual effects artists and inventors who create live-action films, animated films, games, and virtual reality.

“I’m excited to reveal a stellar group of speakers who are the top professionals in their fields. I know they will educate, collaborate with, and inspire our attendees. I look forward to welcoming them to Torino and to our VIEW Conference community,” Gutierrez says.

DeBlois has been nominated for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA award and won a Golden Globe Award for How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Keynote speaker CH Kim is the CEO of PUBG Corporation, known for its successful online multiplayer game Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), which pioneered and revolutionised the battle royale genre in gaming. PUBG holds multiple Guinness World Records, in addition to various industry accolades and awards, including game of the year at the Steam Awards 2018 and best multiplayer game at The Game Awards 2017.

Joining these two keynote speakers at the conference are:

National Film Board of Canada’s Animation Studio studio head and executive producer Michael Fukushima, who has received multiple awards for his own animated short films and now leads a studio that has produced many award winning animators and directors, including Oscar-winners Torill Kove, Chris Landreth, and Alison Snowden and David Fine.

Sony Pictures Imageworks visual effects supervisor Danny Dimian, who led the artists who created the groundbreaking animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The film won over awards, including an Oscar for best animated feature, seven Annies, a BAFTA award, four VES awards and a Golden Globe.

Pixar Animation Studios global technology supervisor William Reeves, was one of the founding members of Pixar. He invented the first motion blur algorithm and methods to simulate particle motion in CGI.  He has received two Academy SciTech awards – one for Pixar’s animation system and the other for particle systems. He won an Oscar for best animated short film (Tin Toy) and an Oscar nomination for the animated short film Luxo, Jr.

Google VR senior staff engineer, and adjunct research professor at USC computer science and USC ICT graphics lab Paul Debevec is best known for his work in utilising the light stages his research team constructed to find and capture the reflectance field over a human face, for high dynamic range imaging and image-based modeling and rendering. Techniques based on his work have been used in many major feature films.

Jan-Bart van Beek oversees the art and animation quality of all Guerilla projects. He was lead artist on Killzone and art director on Killzone 2. For his work as art director and originator of Horizon Zero Dawn, he received a BAFTA Award in 2018. He also has a VES nomination for outstanding real-time visuals for the video game Killzone: Shadow Fall.

Nordeus co-founder, partner, and chief creative officer Milan Jovovic led the Serbian studio’s debut game, Top Eleven Football Manager, a free-to-play social football management simulation game. Nordeus is an independent mobile game developer headquartered in Belgrade.

Rovio’s Stockholm Sweden studio art director Jack M. Gilson, a mobile game artist. Gilson began working in games when he was 15.  Prior to Rovio, he was a lead artist and senior technical artist at Wooga.

The international VIEW Conference, Italy’s premiere event for computer graphics, interactive and immersive storytelling, animation, visual effects, games, and VR, AR, and mixed reality, brings top professionals from those fields to the beautiful baroque city of Torino, Italy for a week of talks, presentations, workshops, B2Bs, and recruitment.

This year’s conference takes place from 21 to 25 October in our exciting new OGR venue.

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Disney India today donated INR 20 million to aid relief and recovery efforts to areas impacted by cyclone Fani in Odisha, India. The donation will support disaster response and provide assistance to those in need through Save the Children in India.

“Our hearts go out to those affected by this severe cyclonic storm Fani. The families and communities impacted by this devastating calamity need our support as they begin to rebuild. “Through our contribution, we hope to help the families affected as they recover from this cyclone,” said Star and Disney India country manager Sanjay Gupta in a statement.

With this aid, Save the Children in India will provide affected families with critical shelter, basic needs and also work in cyclone shelters and temporary camps.

Disney in India and its affiliate companies have always been forthcoming in providing help and support to those affected by natural disasters. In August 2018, Disney and Star India came forward to extend support during Kerala floods.

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With summer vacations heating up across the country, Sony YAY! aims to take the fun and ‘masti’ a notch higher! The kids channel has announced a massive 124 city van activation to amplify its on-ground engagement with kids.

The van activation promises a fun-filled time for young ones with exciting show themed games and a host of other activities. In one of the largest canter activations being undertaken by the channel, the activity will give kids an opportunity to get the YAY-experience – up-close and personal. With specially designed vans set to give everyone the reel-to-real experience, Sony YAY! is going all out to transform its pit-stops into YAY-zones.

Kids can experience their favourite Honey-Bunny’s banter and camaraderie to the adventures of KickO in his unique style. A gaming zone with tabs will also allow kids a chance to “be” their favorite superhero Kicko through the brand new KickO & Super Speedo mobile game. Young fans will get to slay villains, use the uber-cool watch and zip-around Suncity in the gadget-filled supercar, Super Speedo! And that’s not all! They’ll get an opportunity to grab tons of Sony YAY! branded goodies up and take home some fun-tastic memorabilia.

The vans will halt and engage with young audiences at prominent locations in cities across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

While Sony YAY!’s viewership is on the rise with the launch of new offerings, a 360-degree marketing plan is making the channel’s presence felt more.

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Disney’s live-action remake Aladdin has earned an estimated $86.1 million over the weekend and is expected to bring in $105 million by the Memorial Day. The film has taken in $207 million worldwide.

The recent live-action entry from Disney, has become the third highest domestic opening of the year after Avengers: Endgame ($357.1 million) and Captain Marvel ($153.4 million). With Aladdin, Disney has retained its spot at the top for last four weeks now after 26 April. Endgame remained at the top for three weeks straight.

Aladdin was released across 4,476 screens, the widest ever for Disney around the Memorial Day Weekend. On the contrary to the box-office numbers, the film has received mixed reviews. It doesn’t need to mention that Aladdin is far from being perfect critically. And on the whole, the remake seems a little redundant.

But what stands out in this Disney live-action remake is its treatment. A story that’s so well known and has been a classic in the animation history, deserves to be at par with its original. The film brings back the musical charm of the Disney tales. The trailer seemed a little cheesy and average, but surprisingly the film is executed brilliantly with all its splashing hues and happiness spread all along.

Now, it’s a matter of time to see if Aladdin can maintain its position, given some big titles like Godzilla: King of the Monsters are about to enter the space.

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