Toonz festival begins today

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, OCT. 30.

The annual Toonz festival, Masters Animation Celebration, will be held here from October 31 to November 2.

At a press conference here on Monday, Mr. Bill Dennis, CEO, Toonz Animation India, said that unlike in the previous years, this time the festival was not being conducted on a large scale because of the changed global situation following Black Tuesday.

The originally-scheduled panel discussions and sessions with animation masters had been cancelled.

A highlight of the current edition would be an Indian and South- East Asian Animation competition, in which 200 films had been entered. Of these, 42 had been shortlisted by a pre-selection committee comprising Mr. Harvey Deneroff, Mr. Tom Knott (Warner Bros.) and Mr. Bill Mathews (Disney).

The independent film category had received several Indian, Korean and Japanese entries. The student category had attracted entries from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and institutions in the U.S., Singapore, Malaysia and the U.K. The competition category of TV commercials had received entries from Channel V and major animation studios in the country. The grand prize comprised a purse of $ 2,000. The best entry in each competition category would receive a purse of $ 1,000.

Ms. Nandita Das, cine actress, would present the prizes at the valedictory ceremony. It would be followed by the Indian premiere of the latest Dreamworks' film, `Shrek'.

Ten films, made by Toonz during a children's animation workshop, would also be screened at the festival.

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