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Studio Ghibli, like Western counterparts Disney, Pixar and the UK’s Aardman, is one of the most important animation studios in movie history. Since its first feature film, “Castle in the Sky” in 1986, Studio Ghibli has delivered two dozen thought-provoking tales beautifully rendered in a unique brand of animation. To date, its output has racked up have a lucky seven Oscar bids for Best Animated Feature.

“Spirited Away” was the first Studio Ghibli movie to break into the Academy Awards conversation and did so with aplomb in 2003. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (Miyazaki the recipient) over “Ice Age,” “Lilo & Stitch,” “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and “Treasure Planet.”

In 2006, Miyazaki was again nominated — this time for “Howl’s Moving Castle” alongside “Corpse Bride” and “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” with the latter movie, an Aardman creation, reigning victorious.

Miyazaki and Suzuki were the nominees...

Gkids has snapped up North American rights to Toei Animation’s film The First Slam Dunk, an adaptation of the hugely popular Takehiko Inoue manga, which Inoue wrote and directed for the screen. The film which has already proven a smash hit in other territories, grossing over $212M globally, will hit theaters in the U.S. and Canada in both its original Japanese language and an all-new English-language dub later this summer.

Marking Inoue’s directorial debut, The First Slam Dunk follows Shohoku High School’s “speedster” point guard, Ryota Miyagi, who always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Born and raised in Okinawa, Ryota had a brother who was three years older. And following in the footsteps of his older brother, who was a famous local player from a young age, Ryota also became addicted to basketball.

In his second year of high school,...

Gkids has snapped up North American rights to Keiichi Hara’s Lonely Castle in the Mirror, after serving as the distributor in the territory for his past animated features Summer Days with Coo and Miss Hokusai. The film based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Mizuki Tsujimura, featuring animation from A-1 Pictures, is slated for a theatrical release in both its original Japanese language and an all-new English dub this summer.

Reuniting Hara with collaborators including screenwriter Miho Maruo, composer Harumi Fuuki and artist Ilya Kuvshinov, Lonely Castle in the Mirror follows shy outcast Kokoro, who has been avoiding school for weeks when she discovers a portal in her bedroom mirror. She reaches through and finds herself transported to an enchanting castle where she is joined by six other students. And when a girl in a wolf mask explains that they have been invited to play a game,...

Gkids has snapped up U.S. rights to Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia — the sequel to the acclaimed Ernest & Celestine, which landed a Best Animated Feature Oscar nom in 2014. The decorated producer and distributor of animation, celebrating its 15th anniversary, will put both the original French-language version of Gibberitia and a new English dub in theaters this year.

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Both Ernest & Celestine films are based on the children’s book series by Belgian author-illustrator Gabrielle Vincent. The original helmed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner examines the unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest (Lambert Wilson...

With its list of new releases for March 2023, Amazon Prime Video might be rolling out its most impressive monthly lineup yet.

We know that sounds like something straight out of a press release but in this case, it’s actually true! Prime Video, bless it, has some excellent original titles like The Boys and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but its monthly release updates have often been less inspiring than its TV peers. That’s certainly not the case with March 2023 though.

Prime Video gets its streaming party started early by premiering the first three episodes of Daisy Jones & The Six on March 3. This series, based on a book of the same name, tells the fictional Behind the Music-esque story of an equally fictional band. Then, on March 17, Amazon’s partnership with Donald Glover bears its first fruit with the series about obsessive fandom called Swarm. Reggie Jackson documentary Reggie premieres...

It is my experience that one gets a far richer, stranger cinema education in pursuing the careers of actors, that group defined first by (assuming luck shines upon them) two or three era-defining films and then so much that dictates their industry—pet projects, contractual obligations, called-in favors alimony payments, auteur one-offs, and on and on. Few embody that deluge of circumstance better than Michelle Yeoh and Isabelle Huppert, both of whom are receiving spotlights in March. The former’s is a who’s-who of Hong Kong talent, new favorites (The Heroic Trio), items we can at least say are of interest (Trio‘s not-great sequel Executioners), etc.

Huppert’s series runs longer, and notwithstanding certain standards that have long sat on the channel it adds some heavy hitters: Hong’s In Another Country, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come. And, of course,...

March is still winter, no matter which animal you ask, which means it’s still completely acceptable to cancel all plans and curl up under a blanket in front of the TV. Prime Video’s movie library updates throughout the month, with most of its new additions on March 1 — including the “Rocky” saga, multiple “Carrie” adaptations, “12 Angry Men,” and more.

For Prime users who love books and TV, March means the highly-anticipated premiere of “Daisy Jones & the Six,” based on the best-selling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The eponymous Daisy (Riley Keough) and Billy Dunne’s band (Sam Claflin) make a mean match, starting with a hit single and leading to what seems like endless fame and glory. But where there is success there is peril, and both the band’s rise and an electric connection with Daisy threaten Billy’s marriage and everyone’s personal lives. James Ponsoldt,...

Brazilian animated feature “Perlimps,” Alê Abreu’s follow up to Oscar-nominated “Boy and the World,” has been sold in key territories by Best Friend Forever ahead of the European Film Market.

“Perlimps” has been picked up for Japan (Child Film and New Deer), China (DDDream), Cis and baltics (Kinologistica), Sweden (Njutafilm) and Portugal (Films4you). Bff is in advanced discussions to close German Speaking territories, Benelux, Spain, Italy and North America. As previously announced, UFO Distribution will release the feature in France.

“Perlimps” was just released last week in Brazil by leading independent outfit Vitrine Filmes and Sony Pictures, which holds Latin American rights.

The fantasy adventure film follows the journey of Claé and Bruô, a pair of secret agents from rival kingdoms who must join forces in spite of their differences to search for the Perlimps, mysterious creatures who can ultimately find a way to peace in times of war.

Gkids has acquired North American rights to Unicorn Wars — the latest genre-bending animated feature from Goya and Annecy Cristal-winning director Alberto Vázquez (Birdboy: The Forgotten Children) — ahead of its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest. The horror-comedy will be released in theaters by Gkids in early 2023, following its domestic release in Spain this fall.

Billed as Bambi meets Apocalypse Now, Unicorn Wars‘ logline is as follows:

For ages, teddy bears have been locked in an ancestral war against their sworn enemy, the unicorns, with the promise that victory will complete the prophecy and usher in a new era. Aggressive, confident teddy bear Bluet and his sensitive, withdrawn brother Tubby could not be more different. As the rigors and humiliation of teddy bear bootcamp turn to the psychedelic horrors of a combat tour in the Magic Forest, their complicated history and increasingly strained relationship will come to determine the fate of the entire war.

Gkids has acquired North American rights to New Gods: Yang Jian, the latest feature from renowned Chinese animation studio Light Chaser Animation. The producer and distributor of award-winning animated features has slated Yang Jian for theatrical release in both its original Mandarin-language form and an all-new English language dub early next year. The deal marks the latest collaboration between Gkids and Light Chaser Animation, following the former’s local distribution of the 2019 feature White Snake.

Helmed by Ji Zhao, New Gods: Yang Jian is the second installment of the studio’s New Gods series of animated action-fantasy epics inspired by Chinese mythological figures, following the 2021 feature New Gods: Nezha Reborn, also directed by Zhao. It picks up 13 years after Yang Jian (known to some as Erlang Shen) imprisoned his sister beneath a mountain, with the once powerful god now scraping by as a penniless bounty hunter.

UFO Distribution has acquired French rights to the animated family tale “Perlimps” by Alê Abreu, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Boy and the World.”

Sold by Best Friend Forever, “Perlimps” is having its market premiere at the Marché du Film in Cannes and is set to world premiere at Annecy Animation Film Festival.

The film will be released by Sony Pictures in Latin America with a joint distribution in Brazil together with Vitrine Filmes.

the fantasy adventure film follows the journey of Claé and Bruô, a pair of secret agents from rival kingdoms who must join forces in spite of their differences to search for the Perlimps, mysterious creatures who can ultimately find a way to peace in times of war. The animation for the film was hand-drawn by Abreu and a reduced team who spent four years in a mountain village in Brazil. Abreu collaborated with senior Brazilian animator Sandro Cleuzo.

Gkids today announced that its upcoming animated feature The Deer King, from directors Masashi Ando and Masayuki Miyaji, will hit theaters nationwide in July. Fan preview events of the Japanese-language version will be put on in cinemas nationwide on July 13th, in partnership with Fathom Events, with previews of the English-language version to take place the following day.

In addition to the full feature, preview audiences will view a special introduction from Ando, exclusive to the Fathom Events screenings. These events will be followed by a limited theatrical release in select markets nationwide starting July 15th.

The Deer King is a fantasy epic marking the directorial debut of veteran animator Ando, whose work on such landmark films as Spirited Away, Paprika and Your Name helped shape the world of modern animation. It’s set in the aftermath of a brutal war and follows former soldier Van, who toils in a...

Acclaimed Brazilian writer-director Alê Abreu, director of the Oscar-nominated “The Boy and the World,” will world premiere his electric feature-length film “Perlimps” at the upcoming Annecy International Animation Film Festival after excerpts from the project were teased as part of the fest’s Works in Progress program last year.

“Perlimps” will screen at Annecy as a Special Event.

The film presents a mythical prism of hues splayed out to create a dense enchanted forest pictured in painterly tropical tones. Amidst the backdrop, two rivals, Claé and Bruó, reluctantly join forces in a bid to save their precious woodland and the Perlimps from giants surrounding the forest and regain peace.

The animated feature’s producers also shared in exclusivity with Variety a new still from the film, which introduces a third character, John Ovenbird, when he meets with Claé and Bruô

“The film is simply gorgeous. It’s both a story...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has boarded “Perlimps,” an animated feature directed by Alê Abreu, the Brazilian filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated animated feature “The Boy and the World.”

Best Friend Forever will launch international sales on the project at Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux. Now in post, the fantasy adventure film follows the journey of Claé and Bruô, a pair of secret agents from rival kingdoms who must join forces in spite of their differences to search for the Perlimps, mysterious creatures who can ultimately find a way to peace in times of war. The animation for the film was hand-drawn by Abreu and a reduced team who spent four years in a mountain village in Brazil. Abreu collaborated with senior Brazilian animator Sandro Cleuzo.

The voice cast boasts Stênio Garcia, Giulia Benite (“Turma de Mônica: Laços”) and Lorenzo Tarantelli.

“With this film I was guided mainly by color, a very...

Chace Crawford (The Boys), Manny Jacinto (Nine Perfect Strangers), Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) and newcomer Kylie McNeill will lead the English-language voice cast for Mamoru Hosoda’s Gkids awards contender Belle, which is scheduled for release alongside the original Japanese-language version in U.S. theaters (including select Imax screens) on January 14, with exclusive Imax previews in select markets beginning January 12.

Others lending their voices to the new dub include Paul Castro Jr., David Chen, Jessica Dicicco, Brandon Engman, Martha Harms, Jessica Gee George, Barbara Goodson, Bentley Griffin, Andrew Kishino, Wendee Lee, Ben Lepley, Noelle McGrath, Julie Nathanson, Aaron Phillips, Ellyn Stern, Frank Todaro, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Cristina Vee Valenzuela, Tom Bromhead, John Bentley, Tiana Camacho, SungWon Cho, Courtney Chu, Larissa Gallagher, Heather Gonzalez, Xanthe Huynh, Anjali Kunapaneni, LilyPichu, Kyle McCarley, Julie Nathanson, Zeno Robinson, Stephanie Sheh, Michael Sinterniklaas, Rachel Slotky and Laura Stahl.

Hosoda’s’s...

Alê Abreu’s ‘Perlimps’ and Milton Guerrero’s ‘Kai’ are among the five selected projects to be presented at the Animation! Works in Progress by Annecy showcase at Ventana Sur 2021, the biggest film and TV confab in Latin America.

The Animation! WIPs by Annecy sidebar is curated by the French festival and its MIFA market. Since 2020, the selection includes projects from Portugal and Spain.

This year Brazil and Peru are represented by two productions, while Portugal, Spain, France and Colombia produce or co-produce just one. Peru’s presence underscores the rise of the animation sector in the country. According to the Ibero-American Animation Quirino White Paper, Peru has seven animation training centers, three animation lobbies and a score of too production houses. A drill down on the selected titles:

“Kai”

Targeting children and family audiences, “Kai” follows a girl living in a world of magical creatures. When she learns she...

Gkids has nabbed North American rights to Takayuki Hirao’s indie anime pic Pompo the Cinephile, and will release both the original Japanese-language film (titled Eiga Daisuki Pompo-san) and a new English-language version in U.S. theaters early next year.

Hirao’s ode to filmmaking centers on Pompo, a talented and gutsy producer in the world’s movie-making capital, “Nyallywood.” Although she’s known for B-movies, Pompo one day tells her assistant Gene that he will direct her next script: a delicate drama about an aging and tormented creative genius. But when the production heads towards chaos, can Gene rise to Pompo’s challenge, and succeed as a first-time director?

Pompo the Cinephile hails from the new animation studio, Clap. Its Japanese voice cast includes Hiroya Shimizu, Konomi Kohara, Ai Kakuma, Aiko Otsuka, and Rinka Ōtani. The film was an official selection of the 2021 Fantasia Film Festival and was released in Japan in June.

Brazilian director Alê Abreu and his team gave Annecy audiences a first look of his much anticipated new feature film “Perlimps” on Thursday, also sharing his fluid storyboarding process and the methods he uses to create his unique visual style.

The Oscar-nominated director of “Boy and the World” and his assistant director Viviane Guimaraes spoke via video link from Brazil while the film’s executive producer, Ernesto Soto Canny joined moderator Denis Walgenwitz and a live audience for the presentation in Annecy.

The film is set in the rainbow saturated Enchanted Forest and tells the story of two secret agents – a wolf boy and a bear girl – who work for enemy kingdoms and are dispatched to the forest on the same mission: to save the mysterious Perlimps from terrible giants that have surrounded the forest.

“In appearance and in strength they are the opposite of each other – one’s kingdom...

Sony Pictures has boarded Alê Abreu’s buzzed up animated feature “Perlimps,” the acclaimed Brazilian director’s follow up to “Boy and the World” which was nominated for best animated feature at the 2016 Academy Awards.

A best animated feature-winner in the independent category at the 43rd Annie Awards, “Boy and the World” also took the top Cristal at the 2014 Annecy Festival.

Several excerpts for the film will be screened on June 17 in this year’s Annecy Work in Progress section.

Written and directed by Abreu, “Perlimps” is produced by Buriti Filmes, the Sao Paulo-based production house of film directors Lais Bodansky (“Just Like Our Parents”) and Luiz Bolognesi (“The Last Forest”) himself an Annecy best feature Cristal winner in 2013 for “Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury.”

Abreu’s 80-minute long second feature, is co-produced by Sony Pictures, Globo Filmes, the powerful film production arm of Brazilian TV giant Globo and Gloob,...

Time to meet Claé and Bruô. An early promo teaser trailer has debuted as a first look at the new animated film from the acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Alê Abreu. You may recognize his name as he's the filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated, outstanding, beloved animated film The Boy and the World (which was in my Top 10 of 2015). His new film is called Perlimps, another vibrant tale, this time about two "secret agents working for enemy kingdoms" named Claé and Bruô. "Lost in the Enchanted Forest, amid forgotten ruins, pyramids, gas mountains and floating-rock deserts, they discover they have the same mission: to save the Perlimps from the terrible Giants that have surrounded the forest." Sounds a bit like a Ghibli film. The first look was revealed by Cartoon Brew, where they have some additional photos and quotes from Abreu ahead of its Annecy Film Festival unveiling. This teaser doesn't have any...

France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the leading global get-together for all things animation, has unveiled the lineup for this year’s Work in Progress section, among the most highly anticipated events of the world’s animation calendar. When a physical event is possible, lines begin to form early in the morning as fans of the high-profile projects hope to get into the limited seating available at the Salle Pierre Lamy.

A barometer for future standout awards and/or box office success, recent high-profile projects featured at Annecy’s Work in Progress include Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Oscar-winner “Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse” and Oscar nominees in Netflix’s “Klaus” and “Over the Moon,” Cartoon Saloon’s “Wolfwalkers,” Claude Barras’ “My Life as a Zucchini,” Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s “Ernest & Celestine,” Michael Dudok de Wit’s “The Red Turtle” and Dean DeBlois’ “How to Train Your Dragon 2.

On-Gaku: Our Sound, based on the acclaimed Manga, is going to get its big stateside release sometime in the back half of this year. The movie does not have a proper release date at this time, as most movie theaters have been shut down since mid-march. But with big chains like AMC, Cinemark and Regal getting ready to reopen in July, Gkids promises that On-Gaku: Our Sound will be in theaters sometime in 2020.

Gkids, the acclaimed producer and distributor of animation for adult and family audiences, announced that it has acquired the North American distribution rights for the animated feature&#160On-Gaku: Our Sound from director Kenji Iwaisawa, based on the manga by Hiroyuki Ohashi.

In production for over seven years, On-Gaku: Our Sound is composed of over 40,000 hand drawn frames, using the rotoscoping animation technique. The film won the Nelvana Grand Prize at the 2019 Ottawa International Animation Festival, and has...

A region bustling with the winds of change throughout the 2010s — both progressive and retrograde — Latin America enjoyed a banner decade that witnessed the rise of films grappling with economic inequality, indigenous discrimination, and Lgbtq+ issues.

Mexico’s production continued to skyrocket (from Amat Escalante to Eugenio Derbez), Chile emerged as a powerhouse in both the arthouse and mainstream markets (with the Larraín brothers’ Fabula production company and the unofficial movement known as Chilewood), and countries like Panama (“Invasion”), the Dominican Republic (“Woodpeckers”), and Paraguay (“The Heiresses”) made strides towards a more consistent output of noteworthy offers. Although far from a definitive list, these 11 features give the world the opportunity to take a peek at the varied perspectives of Latin American creators, veterans and up-and-comers:

“Aquarius” (2016)

Vigorous and sensual, Sonia Braga commands director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s vital character study in her career-best work playing Doña Clara. The timeless Brazilian...

The Best Animated Feature Oscar race is starting to take shape, but first we have the various precursors to separate the wheat from the chaff. A win at the Golden Globes can arguably be the biggest boost an animated film can receive before the Oscars. In the 13 years of its existence at the Globes, the winner of Best Animated Feature has matched up 10 times with the Academy Awards, only differing in 2006, 2011 and 2014. As for nominations, the Globes Animated Feature lineup often includes at least three films that would go on to earn Oscar noms. The past two years have found the two organizations completely in sync, indicating a Golden Globe nomination in Best Animated Feature is more important than ever for future Oscar glory.

SEEOscar flashback: ‘Toy Story 3’ director thanks fans for embracing ‘talking toys’ during Best Animated Feature speech [Watch]

The Golden Globes have traditionally been much friendlier to...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday.

Last Friday saw the release of Laika’s “Missing Link,” a singular and exquisitely crafted piece of stop-motion animation at a time when generic, computer-generated fare is dominating the market (IndieWire’s positive review can be read here). Naturally, it bombed.

This week’s question: In an attempt to call attention to the films that treat feature-length animation like the art form that it is, what’s the most beautifully animated film ever made?

“5 Centimeters Per Second”

Hoai-Tran (@htranbui), SlashFilm

Makoto Shinkai may be best known as the director behind the 2017 global mega-hit “Your Name,” but he has long established himself as a singular anime filmmaker whose pensive metaphysical plots are only bested by his gorgeous photorealistic renderings of modern-day Tokyo. While his 2013 short film “The Garden of Words” is objectively...

The far-right has now aggressively infiltrated the politics of countless nations, developed and otherwise, advocating malicious rhetoric that targets vulnerable groups, preaches ethnocentrism, and weaponizes religion. Outside of what happened in the United States in 2016, last year’s presidential election in Brazil, which crowned a candidate holding such extreme views, is a testament to the harmful powers of alarmist populism.

Although produced prior to the recent rise of these traditionalist forces in the country, Brazilian animated feature “Tito and the Birds” is a shrewd response to bigotry, packaged as a spooky adventure achieved through the integration of artisanal and digital techniques. The outcome is a stylistically singular treasure with tonal and aesthetic hints of Laika’s horror-inspired “ParaNorman” and the animated Van Gogh biopic “Loving Vincent.”

São Paulo native Gustavo Steinberg, the creative commander propelling the entire operation, co-directed the film with animators Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto. Steinberg made...

As Brazil falls heedlessly into far-right political clutches, the liberal message of Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto’s ravishing animated feature “Tito and the Birds” turns out to be more unhappily timely than its makers would have hoped: Put simply, a society gripped by fear will never take flight. If the boy-against-the-world allegory carrying this moral is painted with a broad brush, so — often quite literally — is the film itself. Employing a darkly iridescent fusion of oil paint and digital embellishment, it renders a growing dystopia in shifting, seasick colors, distorted into about as much exquisite, Expressionist-inspired nightmare fuel as its family-film remit will allow.

A classy acquisition for newbie distributors Shout! Studios, this Annecy and Toronto premiere is among the 25 titles submitted in this year’s animated feature Oscar race. Comparisons to fellow Brazilian dazzler “Boy and the World,” a surprise 2015 nominee, are both obvious and merited,...

Annecy, France — Luiz Bolognesi’s next animation feature, “O estrangeira” (‘The Foreigner’), will be presented on June 14 at Annecy’s Animation du Monde pitching sessions, launched in 2015 to reflect the build in world cinema animation.

Bolognesi‘s debut, “Rio 2096, a Story of Love and Fury,” took the Annecy Festival’s best picture Cristal in 2013.

Animated in classic 2D techniques and budgeted at $1.9 million, the animation feature will be produced by Alê Abreu’s Filme de Papel and Laís Bodanzky’s Buriti Filmes. The production company of Abreu, Academy Award-nominated and an Annecy Cristal Award winner for “Boy and the World,” has sealed a production agreement with Buriti, founded by Bodanzky (“Just Our Like Parents”) and Bolognesi, which sees the three producer-directors alternatively producing features directed by another of the partners.

“O estrangeira” links to Bolognesi’s “Ex-Shamam,” which received a Berlinale special mention for documentary this year and follows an...

Two decades ago, there was hardly a Brazilian animation industry to speak of. Ten years back, a small handful of stalwart directors were struggling to gain international notoriety and impact TV, festivals and box offices domestically and abroad with low budgets and a lot of hard work. Today, Brazilian animation is thriving on all fronts, and in some cases, is even outpacing live-action in budget and ambition.

In 1951, Brazil’s first-ever animated feature, “Amazon Symphony,” was released; since that time 43 other toon features have joined its ranks. One feature every year-and-a-half is hardly anything to write home about, but according to Marta Machado of Brazilian animation house Otto Desenhos, 19 of those pictures have come in the last five years, and another 25 features are currently in production.

The clearest indicator of Brazil’s ascendance as an international animation force came in 2013 when Annecy, one of the world’s most important animation festivals and markets,...

The winners of the 88th Annual Academy Awards have been announced, the biggest award Best Picture went to 'Spotlight.' 'The Revenant' took home the Best Director Oscar for Alejandro González Iñárritu, making Iñárritu the third director in history to win back-to-back directing and Leonardo DiCaprio finally got his Oscar for Best Actor (and there was much rejoicing).

Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki also won his third Best Cinematography Oscar in a row for 'The Revenant.' 'Mad Max: Fury Road' was the big winner of the night for most awards, sweeping the technical categories to earn six Oscars, including Best Production Design.

It was a great year for Irish talent picking up nominations but only Stutterer, which was directed by Irishman Benjamin Cleary managed to pick up a award in Best Short Film (Live Action). The short can be viewed on the Rte player here.

With all the talk of Leonardo DiCaprio...

2015 has seen its share of innovative stand-alone animated features ranging from the surrealist grotesqueries of Bill Plimpton’s Cheatin’ to the technicolor pop psychology representations of Inside Out, but there’s perhaps no larger regular supplier of idiosyncratic animation than the work released through distribution imprint Gkids. In 2015 alone, they’ve been responsible for the releases of both highly anticipated animation fare like Studio Ghibli swan song When Marnie Was There, along with culturally varied projects like The Prophet and Zarafa.

The Boy and the World is the next release to get excited about for fans of eccentric animated features. Originally released in 2013 in creator Alê Abreu’s home country of Brazil as “O Menino E O Mundo,” The Boy and the World is a vividly abstract story of a young boy who chases after his father through a kaleidoscopic world of suffocating industrialism, painterly landscapes, and impressionistic dreamscapes. This week,...

Earlier this month at the 2014 Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the Brazilian feature "The Boy and the World" earned the top honors from both the jury and the audience. Cineuropa recently published a piece on this film and the festival. We have reprinted the article below or you can see the original version Here

Annecy crowns Brazilian film The Boy and the World

by Fabien Lemercier

The Cristal for a Feature Film and the Audience Award at the 38th Annecy International Animated Film Festival (see the article ) have gone to Brazilian film "The Boy and the World" (O menino e o mundo), by Alê Abreu, which will be distributed in France on 8 October by Les Films du Préau. The Jury Award was given to the American feature "Cheatin'" , and the Jury Distinction was bestowed upon the Japanese title "Giovanni no Shima."

European production caught up when it came to the short-film competition, which gave the top prize to "Man on the Chair" by Dahee Jeong, a co-production between France (Sacrebleu Productions) and South Korea. The Jury Award was given to the German-Swiss short "Patch" by Gerd Gockell, while the Franco-Swiss co-production "Hasta Santiago" by Mauro Carraro won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film and the Sacem Award for Original Music. Lastly, the jury awarded two Distinctions, including to La testa tra le nuvole by Italy’s Roberto Catani. For its part, the audience gave its prize to "La petite casserole d'Anatole" by French director Eric Montchaud Also of note in the graduation-film competition was the triumph of "The Bigger Picture" by Daisy Jacobs ( Nfts - National Film and Television School).

The Cnc made good use of the Mifa (International Animation Film Market) to unveil a study on French animation that, among other things, particularly confirmed the genre’s international potential. It highlighted the fact that 13 French animated films have taken over one million admissions abroad over the last decade; during this period, French productions in the animated genre recorded 54.7% of their admissions outside the country’s borders. At the French box office, animation is also still a safe bet (representing 5% of the previously unreleased films that came out in 2013 and 14.4% of takings).

On the other hand, it’s orange alert on the production side of things, with a mere six French animated features approved in 2013 (as against 12 in 2012). The French animation producers’ union, Syndicat des producteurs français d’animation, particularly underlined the fall in the investment made by TV channels and would like to see, among other things, an increase in the tax credit in order to give a break to a genre that is more expensive to produce than live-action fiction (with an average budget of €11.97 million for a French animated feature, as against €5.23 million for a French production in all genres combined). Lastly, the inclusion of a reduced rate of €4 for the under-14s by the country’s movie theatres, which has been in place since the start of 2014 (see news), is still the subject of heated debate, with certain distributors maintaining that the reduced takings are not offset by the increase in attendance levels for that age group, which could, in the future, have an impact on the total number of commitments they make to French animation productions. Watch this space...

Annecy, France – For the second year in a row, a Brazilian feature has taken the top prize at the prestigious international animation festival here, with Ale Abreu’s The Boy and the World (O menino e o mundo) taking home the Cristal Award. A stunning visual feat of colorful, crayon-like drawings that tells a cautionary tale of globalization, The Boy and the World received excellent reviews and great buzz among animation fans at the festival. It was picked up by Gkids for U.S. distribution and is widely expected to make an Oscar push. The film also took home

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In the latest edition of our bi-weekly Latin Beat column, we take a look at upcoming releases in Chile, and also share a peek at documentary festival Fidocs. We have two reports from Mexico, one on the film festival Distrital's awards, and the other about a John Ford retrospective. We also have the trailer for Brazil's fantastic animated Boy and the World (aka O Menino e o Mundo), along with news of a distribution deal in North America....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

I'm once again thrilled to be covering this year's Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.  It will always hold a special place in my heart, as it was the first festival I covered as a Slackerwood contributer about a year ago. This year's lineup brought Austin some unique and inspiring films, full of heart and talent from Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Chile and many others -- not to mention many films made right here in Texas.

I was sadly unable to attend the fest's opening-night film Tercera Llamada (Last Call), but from what I've read on social media and heard through the grapevine, it was one heck of a way to kick off the week. As per usual though, my festing adventures have taken me to the Alamo Drafthouse Village, one of my all-time favorite festival venues.

My film-fest watching started on Wednesday with the whimsical Brazilian movie O Menino e o Mundo...

Brazil’s promotional film body will showcase nine productions and a promo at the fifth Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires.

Brazil’s promotional film body will showcase nine productions and a promo at the fifth Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires.

The films taking part in this year’s edition include Thierry Ragobert, French-Brazilian Amazonia, Fernando Coimbra’s Rio Festival 2013 Redentor winner A Wolf At The Door, Hilton Lacerda’s Tattoo and The Boy And The World from Alê Abreu.

Cinema do Brasil’s line-up includes Caito Ortiz’s Freedom Station, Carlos Diegues’ Twenty, Lúcia Murat’s Memories They Told Me, Luis Otávio de Santi’s The Ship – A Trip With São Paulo Jazz Symphonic Orchestra and Joana Nin’s Captive Hearts.

“This event is a real opportunity to show the world the best productions of Latin American cinema,” said Cinema do Brasil CEO André Sturm.

Ventana Sur is set to run from December 3-6.