Events: Contests

Anima Mundi is the International Animation Festival of Brazil, which brings to the Brazilian audience the best selection of films and videos from around the world. Categories in competition: Short Films, Feature Films, Shorts for Children, Brazilian Animation, Portfolio, First Work and Animation in Progress. The event runs in Rio de Janeiro July 11-20, then moves to Sao Paulo July 23-27. For more information, visit www.animamundi.com.br.

The four-day Banff World Television Festival combines a prestigious international program competition, the Banff World Television Awards, with a comprehensive conference agenda. Within this festival, production deals are secured and advanced, new business relationships are formed and future trends in the industry are identified and examined.

The Webby Film and Video Awards, the leading international honors for original film and video premiering on the Internet, has added 19 new categories, including Music, Sports, Technology, and Travel, as well as new technical categories recognizing excellence in editing, sound design, writing and use of animation.

Florida Supercon is the largest multi-genre convention in South Florida. For 2008, the event moves to the new "super-sized" location, The Hyatt Regency Bonaventure Resort in Weston, Florida.

Florida Supercon is a convention for comic book, anime, animation, sci-fi, fantasy and manga fans. The show will include celebrity guests, artists, writers, vendors, industry guests, Q&As, parties, costume contests, anime programming, manga, cosplay, workshops, panels, cosplay photo shoots and more.

Seoul Animation Center under SBA (Seoul Business Agency) is seeking cartoon and animation projects for "SPP 2008 Project Competition" hosted by the SPP (SICAF Promotion Plan), which is part of the 12th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF). The application can be sent via mail or delivered in person by Feb. 29, 2008.

The International Festival of Animated Films AniFest has announced the format for the competition of the festival's 7th edition, which will be held May 7-13, 2008 in Trebon, Southern Bohemia. Those who participated in the festival in recent years will notice some minor changes in both the structure and the names of the competition categories. Also new to the festival is a non-competition presentation of Czech, Slovak and Austrian films with active participation by the authors. This will take place under the title "CAS Presentation" as part of ProfiForum.

AniFest 08 is the seventh annual computer animation festival sponsored by the Center for Graphics Research at Western Connecticut State University. The festival includes speakers, workshops, an animation theater, a student computer animation competition, and an art exhibit. Submissions are invited for all aspects of the festival. For more information, visit the festival's website (http://cs.wcsu.edu/cgr/festival08/) or call 203-837-9353.

A special Softimage User Event on Thursday, April 17 from 7-9 p.m. will be at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Softimage 3D Evangelist Mark Schoennagel will be presenting an overview of the key tools in SOFTIMAGE|XSI that will be featured prominently in Gnomon's upcoming XSI For Maya Users class. Come see firsthand how XSI's non-destructive workflow allows artists to make changes and add details to fully rigged and animated characters without tedious hours of rework.

April 16-19, 2008. The Red Stick International Animation Festival takes place every year in Baton Rouge, along the banks of the Mississippi River in the downtown arts district. Red Stick highlights every form of animation, from scientific visualization to television programming, visual effects to character animation and feature films.

The Phoenix Film Festival is the largest festival in Arizona and accepts features, shorts, animated shorts, student films and foreign films in both short form and feature length. The festival has repeatedly been called "the best filmmaker festival" by filmmakers who have attended. The screenplay competition offers a cash prize and studio exposure. Go to www.phoenixfilmfestival.com for more information.

Cortoons is an International Animated Short Film Festival that will be held next March (27/28/29/30 th) at Palladium Theatre in Rome (Italy).

The competition

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) hosts FRAMES, Asia's biggest convention on the business of entertainment. FRAMES every year is inaugurated by the Indian Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting and the government both at the federal and state level participates in it actively. FRAMES is a congregation of more than 1,500 professionals from global media and entertainment giants. The areas that its focus on are animation, gaming, digital film making, special effects, convergence, motion pictures, music, radio, broadcast etc.