Tess Martin’s travel blog:

This is my last entry on this tour! Last night was the Paris screening of the Inter-Action program (actually only half of the program due to time restrictions). It was pretty awesome. This event was held at La Peniche Cinema, a cinema….on a boat! ‘Peniche’ means canal boat in French. The boat is moored in l’Oucq canal, inside Parc de la Villete, a very modern park with lots of red blocky buildings, sculptures and open space. Very ‘unlike Paris’ as my friend put it. La Peniche is run by Gabriele Brennen and they show the most short films in the whole of France!

The event was also sponsored by AFCA, Association Francaise du Cinema d’Animation, and was in fact, part of the 10th Fete du Cinema d’Animation organized by AFCA. AFCA is an organization that was born independent of ASIFA France, the French chapter of the international animation organization, but within the last 10 years the two have joined forces. They now organize a festival every year during the month of October across the whole of France. And our event was in fact on Oct 28th, official international ‘animation day’.

The Seattle animations were screened first, followed by a selection of French films – mostly from a studio called Planktoon, that makes their own films, but also does ads and idents for television stations. This produced an interesting mix of independent vs. commercial animation, and some remarked on the irony that it was the Americans who were making experimental work, and the French more commercial work. But amongst the French films there was one real gem – an independent film by French/Japanese filmmaker Momoko Seto called ‘Planet Z’. I’m still hazy on the details, but apparently she got a residency and producer through an Annecy Film Festival competition to make this film. Lots of timelapse photography, some of very very, small things. Watch the trailer below, it’s awesome.

Juliette from AFCA and Gabriele from La Peniche led the Q&A after, and I got a lot of interesting questions about techniques, distribution methods, and motivation. There must have been about 40 people there, and it was probably the most enthusiastic audience of the tour. Thank you to Gabriele and Juliette for the hard work!

La Peniche Cinema!

Boat up front

entrance

Cinema before the screen was lowered

A Paris metro map revelas its layers

Tess Martin’s travel blog – Sunday Oct 16th:

I arrived in Amsterdam after a few lovely days at a friend’s place in The Hague. De Nieuwe Anita is a funky venue near the Jordaan neighborhood of the city with lots of space – they have a large circular bar in the front room that doubles as a live music stage some nights, with lots of couches. The presentation space is down some stairs and can be used for live music as well as movies. This screening was a slightly different program from the regular Inter-Action program, and functioned as a Part I to the EYE Film Institute screening (also in Amsterdam) on Tuesday. The screening room got pretty full of people, only 1 of whom was a friend of mine! Some interesting questions after as well. I totally blanked on taking pictures this time, so these below are not mine but from the internets. Tonight (the 17th) is the VERA screening in Groningen!

De Nieuwe Anita

De Nieuwe Anita bar area

Tess Martin’s travel blog:

I got into Newcastle yesterday around noon, and was met by Mat Fleming, one of the programmers at the Star and Shadow Cinema, an alternative space that has been around about ten years. I spent a few hours walking around the city, and swinging by the Northumbria University and Newcastle University campuses – Northumbria is the one that has an animation course in their media department. By the description in their prospectus it seems quite commercially oriented, but apparently they’ve just hired a few animation tutors who are more broad-minded. In fact, a bunch of their students came to the screening that evening.

Mat and I swung by the private view of a video art exhibition curated by a friend of his, and settled in at the cinema. The seats got quite full, and Mat said about half the people were new faces to him – probably the animation students mentioned earlier. The Inter-Action screening went well despite a technical hiccup, and there were interesting questions afterwards about distribution, funding and techniques. The cinema has a nice bar area out front where everyone mingled into the late hours.

The evening was capped off by a late night rescue of Claus the cat, who had gotten himself stuck down in a basement patio 8 feet below ground level. We finally had to lower a ladder and the cat climbed straight up. The next morning he mauled a bird and brought it, still alive, to the front door. Thank you, perhaps?

Thanks very much to Mat and his welcoming, inspiring housemates for such a fun time!

Friday I take the train to the Netherlands, and the next event is at De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam on Sunday, Oct 16th.

Sheep on the way to Newcastle

entrance to the Star and Shadow cinema

front bar area

cinema