ACMI welcomes to Melbourne international filmmakers Steve Hoban (Ryan) and Leslie Iwerks (The Hand Behind the Mouse) for MIAF 2005
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image is proud to welcome international filmmakers Steve Hoban (Canada), producer of Ryan (winner of Best Short Animation at this year's Academy Awards) and Leslie Iwerks (US), director, writer and producer of The Hand Behind the Mouse, a documentary feature about Ub Iwerks, the co-creator of Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney's first animator.
Steve and Leslie will be in Melbourne from Tuesday 21 June as special guests of the 2005 Melbourne International Animation festival and will present their films in person at special screenings on Sunday 26 June.
Steve Hoban (producer, Ryan)
MIAF 2005 will be screening the Melbourne premiere of Ryan, winner of the Oscar for Best Short Animated Film at this year's Academy Awards. Directed by Chris Landreth and produced by Steve Hoban, Ryan was created using maya state-of-the-art animation software, also used to create effects in such blockbusters as Lord of The Rings and Spiderman.
Ryan chronicles the rise and fall of maverick Canadian filmmaker Ryan Larkin. Once described as the 'Frank Zappa of animation', Larkin made four groundbreaking films, including the Oscar nominated short Walking (1969), before drifting into cocaine and alcohol dependency and disappearing from public view to become a homeless man panhandling for change on the streets of Montreal for more than 20 years.
An intriguing hybrid of animation and first-person interviews (including dialogue culled from over 20 hours of conversation with Larkin himself), Ryan will screen as the centrepiece of Ryan: The Whole Picture, a special MIAF program that will include all four of Ryan Larkin's films as well as two previous films from Chris Landreth, director of Ryan.
Ryan: The Whole Picture will be introduced by Steve Hoban, who will also participate in an audience Q&A following the screening.
Hoban's other projects have included Vincenzo Natali's Nothing, Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps III: The Beginning. Upcoming productions include Black Christmas, a remake of the classic film from the early 70s that launched the serial-killer genre, being written and directed by Glen Morgan & James Wong (X-Files, Final Destination, The One), and Uberman, an epic anti-superhero animated feature to be directed by Natali.
Hoban produces films at his Toronto-based company Copperheart Entertainment.
Leslie Iwerks (USA)
Leslie Iwerks is the granddaughter of Ub Iwerks, Disney's first animator, best friend and the co-creator of Mickey Mouse, arguably the most famous cartoon character of all time.
Ub Iwerks animated all the early Disney cartoons including Steamboat Willie (which was the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon, made in 1928) and Plane Crazy (1929). Another famous Disney short he created was the spooky Skeleton Dance, the first in Disney's 10 year Silly Symphony series (which set cartoons to famous classical music) and was considered so macabre in its day that some cinema owners refused to screen it.
Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney became friends back in 1927 when they met as artists working at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio. When Disney opened a studio for Universal (and eventually his own), Ub became his top animator.
Leslie will be coming to Melbourne as a special guest of the Melbourne International Animation Festival to present The Hand Behind the Mouse, a feature documentary about Ub's life that she wrote, directed and produced. As well as bringing her film to Melbourne, Leslie has also facilitated the release from the Disney archives of a collection of Ub Iwerk's early work for the festival - very rarely screened - which will feature on Sunday 26 June.
Leslie's other projects include The Ride, a big-wave reality-adventure surf show starring six of the world's top surfers, and a soon-to-be finished feature documentary on the history of Pixar Animation Studios and a behind-the-scenes look at the computer animation art form they pioneered.
Published Friday, 15 July 2005
|
