FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Accolades for Australian Animation New claymation to open international film festival
When the prestigious 2009 Sundance Film Festival opens in January it will be a Victorian film that will grace the screen, in a world first. Locally produced claymation feature film Mary and Max will open the festival. It will be the first time that an Australian film receives such an honour.Mary and Max is a subversive and powerful full length claymation from Academy Award winning director Adam Elliot and Producer Melanie Coombs, who won the Best Short Animated Film Oscar in 2003 for Harvie Krumpet.
Produced entirely in Melbourne it demonstrates the local screen industry’s ability to vie with animations produced internationally. Mary and Max, which took almost two years to create, has been an opportunity for local animators, technicians and crews to work in Melbourne on an animation of this calibre, length and complexity.
“Opening the Sundance Film Festival is a prestigious accolade. It’s testament to the effort and commitment of the highly skilled practitioners in Melbourne and our congratulations go to Director Adam Elliot, Producer Melanie Coombs and all the team at Melodrama Pictures.”
During its production Mary and Max garnered attention from international animation companies due to its world-first innovative filming technique. Melodrama Pictures in partnership with Melbourne-based companies Stop Motion Pro and XDT, developed pioneering new animation technology that allowed the film to be produced at high speed and on a modest budget. The technological advance is an exciting new animation breakthrough and has already piqued the interest of UK’s renowned Aardman, the creators of such films as Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run.
Every year Sundance Film Festival selects 200 films for exhibition from 9000 submissions from around the world, with the opening film being one of the significant highlights of the program.
Mary and Max is a tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York.
For media enquires regarding Film Victoria, please contact:
Frances Ward at Solid Ink Communications 0413 789 335 or frances.ward@solidink.com.au
For media enquiries regarding the production, please contact:
Marguerite Barbara, Icon Film, 02 8594 9041 or marguerite@iconfilm.com.au