Animation
We have been terrible with keeping up with this blog, so we officially announce it has been moved to our FB page where you can find all the latest gossip: what’s out, who we are working with and what we are plotting! Please find us there!
Happy Monday! ANIMADOCS will be part of ANIDOK Zagreb this Saturday, a one-day intensive workshop for audio-visual professionals in the field of animated documentaries, organized by ASIFA Croatia.
Our founder Maria Stanisheva will lead the masterclass “ANIMADOCS: animation, documentary and everything in-between” which will explore different ways of mixing animation and documentary film. Case studies will include our independent projects, educational shorts, activist and human rights campaigns. The masterclass will take place on December 2, from 19:30 – 21:00 at the Tuškanac cinema.
Right before that, the incredible Swedish music video and film director and founder of FilmTecknarna Jonas Odell will hold a masterclass “What, how and why” where he will talk about what attracted him to an animated documentary, and how his vision of this genre has changed over the years. There will be lectures by Croatian film theorist Hrvoje Turković; art historian from Hungary Brigit Iványi-Bitter; and director of the German association AG Animationsfilm Annegret Richter.
The event is open and free for everyone, so please stop by if you are around!
Our friends at Nomadic Learning were awarded the 2017 Gold Winner of the Social and Collaborative Learning Award. The recognition is based on their work with large and small clients on the organizational challenges that demand a collaborative and continuous approach to learning. Nomadic has created an impactful digital learning solution which features formal and informal learning content delivered through a “social-first” learning platform that has the best engagement rates in the industry! How do they do that?: “We get and keep learners’ attention because we are relentlessly committed to quality content and design.”
Currently Nomadic features trainings in Digital Transformation, Leadership, Digital Communication and Giving Voice to Values. You can request a demo and see how it works for yourself and your team, plus you will get to see some of the short animations created by ANIMADOCS for Nomadic’s platform (over 30 and counting!).
DANGERS ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL is the fourth campaign we’ve created for Human Rights Watch which summarises the journey of a 12-year old Afghan girl who is on a horror-like quest to get to her classroom, only to find the military have occupied the school. Watch the short video and read more in our portfolio. You can also watch an 8-min documentary short created as part of the same campaign which gives an insight into the issue.
The video was released on HRW’s FaceBook page on 17 October and has accumulated over 100 thousand views in the first day of its release. Global Citizen also released a detailed reportage on the project. Our overall aim was to help HRW gather funding for girls’ community schools in Afghanistan, a practice that has proven successful over the past few years. We will know how effective the campaign has been in the following months.
Check out the characters create by Rosi Raleva:
Yesterday Saudi Arabia announced that it would allow women to drive, ending a longstanding policy that has become a global symbol of the oppression of women in the ultraconservative kingdom. The change, which will take effect in June 2018, was announced in a royal decree read live on state television and in a simultaneous media event in Washington. Saudi leaders hope the new policy will help the economy by increasing women’s participation in the workplace. Many working Saudi women spend much of their salaries on drivers or must be driven to work by male relatives.
According to the latest New York Times article “rights groups and Saudi activists have long campaigned for the ban to be overturned, and some women have been arrested and jailed for defying the prohibition and taking the wheel.” One of the campaigns quoted in the article as leading to the big change is Together to End Male Guardianship: a campaign created by ANIMADOCS for Human Rights Watch that was rated “HRW’s most viewed video on Facebook for 2016”. The grassroots movement that the campaign created has led to over 14,000 Saudi women signing a petition asking for the government policy to be changed.
ANIMADOCS is thrilled to have a small part in this historic change, and hopes this will be just the beginning for women in Saudi Arabia! Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, said women would be able to obtain driver’s licenses without having to ask permission of their husbands, fathers or any male guardian — despite so-called “guardianship” laws that give men power over their female relatives. Under these laws, women still cannot travel abroad, work or undergo some medical procedures without the consent of their male “guardian,” often a father, a husband or even a son.
Happy to announce that our short The Tump & Jesus Show has been selected to screen within the Comedy/Drama section of Revolution Me Film Festival – “where filmmakers seek independence”. The screening will be held on Sunday, 13 August, 2PM at the Spike Lee Theatre (1 University Plaza, Brooklyn, NY).
Check out the full festival schedule and get your tickets in advance. Looks like an interesting indie film selection and the best part – our fabulous co-director/producer Todd Letherman will be there to talk about the film and answer any questions you might have!
Human Rights Watch recently released the third project we created for them called IT’S A MEN’S CLUB – an online animated awareness campaign, part of HRW’s report “Discrimination Against Women in Iran’s Job Market”. Laws and policies that discriminate against women interfere with Iranian women’s right to work: their inability to travel, prohibitions on entering certain jobs, and an absence of basic legal protections.
Last year, we created I WAS SOLD on the rights of migrant domestic workers in Oman and TOGETHER TO END MALE GUARDIANSHIP on women’s rights violations in Saudi Arabia in regards to the local male guardianship law. One of the three clips from this campaign was the ‘most viewed HRW online video of 2016’, over 10 million people saw the campaign online with some incredible media coverage from the New York Times, the Independent, Euronews and more. We are exceptionally pleased with the fact that the grassroots movement #togethertoendmaleguardianship has picked up and according to CNN and BBC over 14,000 Saudi women have signed a petition asking for the government policy to be changed.
ANIMADOCS is proud to collaborate with HRW and excited to be part of the much needed waves of change that the organization is creating across the world.
Let’s launch 2017 with some good news: our short animation The Trump & Jesus Show was invited to screen at Shorts On Tap, an award-winning short film festival that supports the spread of awareness on social issues through film and hosts screenings in London, Berlin and Tokyo.
The showcase will take place in London on January 26th under the name TRUMPED: A Selection of Unpresidented Short Films: a bunch of despotic works depicting tyranny, bigotry and the farcical times we live in. The event will start at 7PM with a live performance by ACT ONE, film screening will be on at 8PM (exact address is 93 Feet East, Brick Lane, London E1). Get your tix in advance!
The newly elected commander in chief will not join the Q&As after the screening but our director/producer Maria Stanisheva will, so hope to see ya’ll in London!
A quick update just a day before US Presidential Elections.
The Trump and Jesus Show has reached 33 000 people via Facebook, Vimeo and YouTube. Telling by some of the comments, we’re reaching Trump supporters and managing to stir some Christian debate so thumbs up for that!
We’ve been featured in a bunch of European newspapers, part of the #EUROPEGOESUS media coverage of the 2016 US Presidential Elections: Rebubblica (Italy’s biggest daily), Le Figaro (one of top three in France), Tribune Geneve (Switzerland) and several US online media spots like The Daily Kos, The Curious Brain and numerous Vimeo channels.
We’ve also been shortlisted for the Awardeo Video of the Week competition and invite you to vote for us (please press the green ‘vote’ button and sign in with FB or Twitter), it will only take a second of your time and help us spread the word further. The competition ends on Election Day.
Thanks for your continuous support and please GO VOTE tomorrow!
FATHER – an animated-documentary produced by Maria Stanisheva while at Compote Collective and awarded 28 international awards, will be part of a very special event this week: the Animation Nights New York (ANNY) monthly screening. Looking at this moth’s selection, it looks like FATHER will be in good company so please join us for an exciting screening, followed by a Q+A with Maria and some of the other filmmakers.
ANNY will start at 8PM on Oct 26 (Wed) at 180 Maiden Lane, NY 10038. The location is quite unusual – a huge glass skyscraper in the middle of Seaport District featuring a renovated atrium plaza with a great screen, projection and sound system. Admission will be free. And if you are one of the people who don’t want to admit that Summer is now gone, feel free to bring a blanket to lounge on the indoor grass and come join us for a great selection of animation and a glass of wine or beer. Please don’t forget to RSVP for the event via Eventbrite and see you at the screening!