Cartoons on the Bay Announces Selections

SALERNO, February 27: Cartoons on the Bay has announced that 176
programs from 24 countries were chosen as official selections for this year’s
festival, which will take place in Salerno, Italy, from April 10 to April 13.

In addition to European programs such as Alphanim’s Hairy Scary and American
productions such as the third season of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last
Airbender, other programs chosen as official selections for the 12th edition of
the festival were from China, Japan and South Korea. This year also features
programs from countries such as Latvia, Malaysia, India, Slovenia and Colombia.

There are 40 works that have been nominated for the 2008 Pulcinella
Awards, five for each of the eight competing categories.

Walt Disney Television Animation’s new series My Friends Tigger and
Pooh, presented in last year’s preview, returns to Cartoons on the Bay. Pat
& Stan (Mac Guff Ligne, TV-Loonland and TF1) was nominated in the TV Special
section, along with the series Sally Bollywood (Tele Images Kids and
France 3) and John and Karen (Arthur Cox), a short that illustrates the
difficult sentimental communication between a polar bear and a penguin.

Other official selections featured at Cartoons on the Bay include Anatane
and the Children of Okura (Les Films De La Perrine, Carrere Group e Tooncan); Squirrel
Boy (Cartoon Network Studios); and the short Sleeping Betty (National Film
Board of Canada).

Seven competing programs come from Italy, all co-produced by Rai
Fiction: Everybody Loves a Moose (Trion Picture and
Cosgrove Hall), Amita of the Jungle (Lastrego & Testa
Multimedia), Gladiators (MondoTV), Uffa che pazienza (Enanimation
Motus Motionworks), Stefi’s World (The Animation Band), A
Bicicle Trip (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia) and Acqua in bocca (Maga Animation
Studio).

Asian productions are represented at the festival this year as well,
with programs like the Japanese TV special Miyory in the Sacred Forest (Nippon
Animation Co., Fuji Television Network), the preschool show Hooray for Fizi (Sui Sui! Fizi
Production Committee) and the Korean production Wanted (Electric
Circus).

—By Irene Lew