Czech it Out
International Festival of Animated Films, Třeboň, Bohemia, Czech Republic, now there’s a mouthful, but, Třeboň is such a quaint little 12th century, I think they said, town, it seems an unlikely place for a big international animation festival, and yet it was just that, and they showed three UPA programs that we organized for them on DVDs. UPA Classics and UPA Designers were the first two programs that Amid Amidi presented with the help of Emily Hubley and Gene Deitch, and they were very well received. Tee Bosustow was unable to attend the first two because his daughter was getting married. Directly after the wedding, he hopped on a flight from LAX to Prague, and presented the third program the next morning, UPAs First-Time Directors, which featured new directors of the oft-forgotten shorts on the CBS Gerald McBoing Boing television series. The image of Bosustow with a bouquet of flowers followed a strange set of circumstances, which we can explain if you contact us through the Contact Us page.
The festival was followed by a few days of R&R in Prague, lunching with Gene and Zdenka Deitch, and festival director, Bara Prikaska, plus, interviewing two Czech animation experts, Micheala Mertova and Edgar Dutka, and doing a little sightseeing along the gorgeous Moldau river, Vitava in Czech. Then, it was off to Western Europe, with a home base in Paris, to videotape more interviews for the UPA documentary feature, which included Jean-Christophe Dessaint in Montreuil, a section of Paris, Grègoire Pont in Elbeuf en Bray in Normandy, France, Jean-François Laguionie and Anik Le Ray in Trèdarzec, Brittany, also in France, and Alain Gagnol and Elana Pomares at La Poudriere animation school in Valence, the final French interview, and a final interview with Monique Renault, who is French, but lives in the Netherlands with her documentarian Dutch husband. We interviewed her in her animation studio in Nieuwendammerdijk, Amsterdam. It was an extremely productive trip, although there were others we wanted to interview, but weren’t able to for one reason or another.
Category: Festivals
