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ASIFA: A WORLDWIDE ORGANIZATION
DEDICATED TO THE ART OF ANIMATION
ASIFA (ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DU
FILM D'ANIMATION) was founded in 1957 in France, and chartered under
UNESCO in 1960 as a membership organization devoted to the encouragement and
dissemination of film animation as an art and communication form. In its 40
year existence, it has grown to over 1700 members in 55 countries, with
national chapters in such unlikely places as UlanBaatar, Mongolia and
Tehran. The national chapters maintain the most immediate and direct contact
with our members, many, like the American regional groups, with their own
monthly newsletters and screenings. ASIFA provides the linkage between all
the chapters as well as a direct connection to International events such as
animation festivals and seminars.
ASIFA's Connection with Festivals
When you send your film to an
animation festival and it is lost or damaged, it is ASIFA that will confront
the festival organizers to either locate the film, or obtain payment for the
destroyed or lost film. Conversely, ASIFA's support of an animation festival
aids them immeasurably with mailing lists, the securing of film
retrospectives and animation artwork exhibitions. ASIFA maintains a booth at
many animation festivals, which offers advice and publications, serves as an
agent for animators who wish to offer their artwork for sale, and serves to
bring animators and animation lovers from throughout the world together to
meet, talk, drink and even sing. And at all major festivals, ASIFA , under
the leadership of its President, Michel Ocelot, hosts the CONVERSATIONS WITH
A MASTER series that gives a chance to our younger colleagues to have
intimate discussions with the greatest artists in our field.
ASIFA News
ASIFA publishes a 32-page multilingual
(English, French and Russian) newsletter, ASIFA-NEWS, three times a
year. ASIFA-NEWS has become a source of some of the field's most interesting
articles and interviews and is sent airmail to all of our members. A recent
issue featured reports on the festivals in Annecy, Fantoche and Leipzig, an
address by Michel Ocelot, ASIFA's President; as well as short statements by
all newly-elected ASIFA Board members as to the actions they have taken
during their term in office. Under special arrangement, ASIFA-Hollywood
members receive the English edition of the NEWS, printed in Vermont.
ASIFA.net
In the last year, the ASIFA website moved
from its original home in Volda Norway to Vienna, Austria. With Austrian
Board member, Thomas Renolder as the editor, ASIFA.net offers a wide variety
of services to the animation community. In addition to Festival previews
interviews with festival directors) and Festival reports (by our members
throughout the world) we provide links to a multitude of national and
regional ASIFA groups and artists' websites, and we feature a Communication
Zone open to anyone who wishes to bring up issues of discussion. You will
find monthly changing animated gifs of international artists at the entry
page and then in the ART ZONE's gallery. More new projects and initiatives
are 'under construction' and need your active collaboration.
ASIFA Film & Video Archive
Our Animation Archive in Berlin is now
affiliated with a University in Babelsberg which has been transferring all
our many film holdings to VHS. The films are kept permanently in the Archive
and are available to students and historians to view there, while the videos
will be freely circulated to ASIFA groups and members around the world. At
the moment, the transfers are being made in PAL , but we have hope of NTSC
transfers in the near future.
ASIFA Children's Animation Workshops
Since 1982, one ASIFA committee has continued to run
effective and self-sustaining programs. The ASIFA WORKSHOP Group, comprising
of children's animation workshops in over thirty countries, each one run by
a professional ASIFA animator, produces one international collaboration each
year, created by hundreds of children on particular themes. These films have
been screened widely at festivals and have been sold to television stations
in the United States, and abroad. Children around the world have been making
friends with children in distant lands and working together to create
something important to them. The project for 1999 was a series of segments
based on on pollution of our water.
Visiting Animators Program
Once a year, we bring a visiting animator to the
United States to tour and screen films. In the past few years, Bordo
Dovnikovic (Croatia), Michel Ocelot (France) and Rao Heidmets (Estonia) have
toured the United States lecturing at museums, schools and churches.
Become an ASIFA Member
ASIFA membership is open to all individuals
interested in animation. Besides professionals, students and teachers,
aficionados are also most welcome. No American has ever been rejected for
membership in ASIFA.
You get a lot of concrete benefits for your
dues. And you also get the knowledge that you are supporting a world-wide
organization that lobbies effectively for the best in animation, that brings
the outside world a little closer to our shores and that brings hope to
hundreds of our colleagues living in poorer circumstances. We need you and
we hope that you need us. Give us a chance to show you what we can do
together.
David Ehrlich
ASIFA Executive Board
RR 1, Box 50
Randolph, VT 05060
This page is maintained through
the courtesy of the members and volunteers of
ASIFA-Hollywood. Its contents are copyright © 2007
ASIFA-Hollywood (and individual contributors) and may not be duplicated or
redistributed without the prior written consent of the Board of Directors of
ASIFA-Hollywood.
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