Babelgum Launches Animatron Film Festival

NEW YORK/LONDON: Babelgum is launching a competition for animation and anime projects aimed at online, mobile and linear platforms that will culminate in a special public screening program at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October.

Entries for the Babelgum Animatron Film Festival will be eligible for an Audience Award, voted on by the public, as well as a cash prize from a select jury of leaders in the animation, film and television arenas.

Submissions will be accepted until August 22 and will be available for global viewing at babelgum.com/animatron and on the free Babelgum mobile apps starting in mid-September. Votes for the Audience Award can be placed online or via the mobile apps. Attendees at the Hamptons International Film Festival will also have the chance to vote.

The Hamptons International Film Festival has partnered with Babelgum to co-present the Hamptons Animation Showcase, an animated shorts program at the 2010 Hamptons Film Festival, with additional support on marketing and media visibility for the Animatron Film Festival from Shooting People, the social network for independent filmmakers, and RingTales, a company that specializes in animating syndicated comic strips.

Eligible films will incorporate any known animation technique, including CGI, stop-motion, Flash, hand-drawn/cel, live-action mixed, claymation, paper-cut, Pixilation, RotoScope, 3D and machinima, among other styles. The award categories are humor, fantasy, real life, anime and minis.

Karol Martesko-Fenster, the senior VP and general manager of Babelgum’s Film Division, said, “The Animatron Film Festival is an exciting new event for the animation community, and the popularity of animation and anime among both domestic and international audiences makes the Hamptons International Film Festival environment an ideal live venue for our cross-platform competition, which will be freely accessed, viewed, and voted on by anyone in the world. Babelgum is already home to all kinds of ingenious, professionally produced animation, and in the months ahead, we’ll be striving increasingly to become the leading distributor of short animated films and serials on the Web and on mobile devices.”

“As a producer of animated films for over 20 years,” said RingTales co-founder Jim Cox, “I’m thrilled to be working with Babelgum on this exciting online and offline event, a long overdue showcase for the abundant talents of professional and budding animators hailing from around the world. The box-office success of feature films like Shrek and Toy Story 3 certainly underscores the mainstream appeal of studio features, but there’s a whole universe of brilliant, trailblazing filmmakers out there whose animated shorts are just waiting to be discovered.”

James Mullighan, the creative director at Shooting People, added: “This festival promises to be great fun, not only for our members, among whom we count thousands of accomplished animators, but for anyone with a passion for animation or an interest in expanding the horizons of what great short filmmaking is all about. It was a pleasure to join forces with Babelgum on previous online competitions, so we look forward to reaching out again to our 35,000-plus member network for quality submissions.”