International Festival of Animation

International Animation Festival.

Hosted by Jean Marsh.

It amazes me that I remember this series from my childhood. I was in kindergarten when I first saw this series and was haunted by the animations every night. I remember being terrified by the thought of a giant butterfly chasing me down and pinning me. The animations in this series are what made animation it is today. No one ever went against the Disney inspired grain of animation, until this series aired. The shorts all seem to escape me accept for two very vivid ones.

1.) The butterfly collector one gave me nightmares forever. It was beautiful in its animation and I just remember a butterfly collector chasing down butterflies and pinning them to his collection.

2.) This one is still a little sketchy to my memory, it was animated in a similar style as the butterfly one although, it featured a little girl at a table talking to an older gentleman. She would continually talk to the older man and he would continually get more aggravated with the little girl. I can't remember much more about it but it stuck in my mind like glue.

3.) The Hunger about killed me. The thought of it now gives me chills. It had the same theme as the butterfly one. With the main character ending up getting what he was giving.

PBS should really consider giving the kids (and adults) a chance at this series once again. This shows everyone that animation was something to enjoy, without the computer generated characters, the 3d effects and all of the other current effects that people throw together just to make what they think is entertainment for kids.

Praise be for the IMDb! I've been trying for years to remember the name of this series correctly, and some other user mentioned it in his memories of _The Man Who Had to Sing_, one of the shorts from this remarkable series. I was already a fan of animation, but I had become aware of non-US films only a few years before the International Festival began to air. Suddenly I was catapulted into the many films of the NFB, of Zagreb Films, of the UK producers, and so forth. The material was so rich, varied, and surprising that missing a single airing was never an option in our household! As the above-mentioned user noted, I still sing the poor little man's "ya, ya, ya, ya-ya" song decades later. I still remember the one-minute adventures of Maxi Cat and fall into fits of snickering. I still, at least once a year, try to learn the name and authorship of that amazing line-drawing animation that traces the rise of "civilization" since the demise of the dinosaurs--a marvelous ending that one has, that I'd never dream of revealing here even with a spoiler alert! When one hasn't seen a snippet of works in some 20 years, then such recollection really says something about quality.

I once wrote to PBS (getting the words in the series name out of order), asking if this wonderful series was available or ever would be, and the person who answered had no idea what I was talking about.

This programme was an always interesting, innovative smorgasbord of international animation. It was my first glimpse of European animation, and made foreign animated films available to a much wider North American audience than would normally have seen them. These are the sorts of movies usually shown once a year at repertory cinemas in the larger cities - for them to come on television regularly was quite an achievement, and an example of public television programming at its best. My favorite films were the Canadian NFB shorts, but there were many other memorable and often disturbing films included. Jean Marsh (along with her partner, Grover the Muppet) was a fine choice as presenter, at the height of her recognition in North America for her recent performance on "Upstairs, Downstairs".

This series ran for three seasons on PBS and, like the overwhelming majority of the shows produced for that network, was of excellent quality and had to have been assembled by people who had a love for the subject matter. The shorts that ran on the series ran the gamut from deathly serious ones like Sisyphus (a Hungarian short) to the delightful short Great (a British Academy Award winner) and every possible spot on the line between. Work from all over was featured, from The National Film Board of Canada, the Eastern Europeans, the United States, the United Kingdom, ranging from shorts done for children to things like Closed Mondays by Will Vinton. Different animation styles, from 2-D hand drawn to puppet and Claymation, were featured. The intent was simply to showcase the best short animation available to PBS. The usual suspects-Warner Brothers, Disney, MGM-weren't featured, but they didn't need the exposure. These shorts did and finally found something approaching the audience they deserved.

It's been 25 years since this first came on the air and more than 20 since it ended. Some extraordinary things have been done in the intervening years. It would be wonderful if perhaps PBS or someone would put together a show similar to this in concept to give animation like this more of an audience these days. No matter. Thanks to this show, I discovered a whole side of animation I barely glimpsed before, here and there and for that I'll always be thankful. I wish I could see some of these again,though.