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Monday, December 15, 2008

AIFF - The Real Place takes Cam Christianson back to Sundance

At last year's Anchorage International Film Festival, I wrote about my favorite animated film, Cam Christianson's "I Have Seen the Future."
I Have Seen the Future was a very classy animated tennis game in shades of green and yellow. The camera swept around, the tennis court warped, the main tennis player had an interesting face - not some standard look - and it all worked well with the song by the Canadian singer Chris Demeanor. (Who could forget a name like that?) An original look for the whole film(at least for me) and it all fit together nicely.
It didn't win here in Anchorage, but it went on to get picked for last year's Sundance Film Festival.

I just got an press release email that Cam had a second animated film accepted to Sundance for January 2009.

From the Calgary Herald:

For the second time in as many years, Cam Christiansen will be hobnobbing with North America's filmmaking elite in Utah after his animated short won a coveted spot at the Sundance Film Festival.

Earlier this week, the National Film Board announced Christiansen's The Real Place will show in late January at Robert Redford's celebrated festival, topping off an impressive year of achievements for the 38-year-old filmmaker.

His first film, I Have Seen the Future--which was made with Calgary singer-songwriter Kris Demeanor --played the festival last January, nabbed a top prize at the prestigious Los Angeles Film Festival, was selected by the Toronto Film Festival as one of 2007's Top 10 Canadian shorts and is among 36 films short-listed for a 2008 Academy Award in the best animated short category.

"It's fantastic," says Christiansen.

"It really felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. But I guess this makes it twice in a lifetime."

The Real Place, which was directed and animated by Christiansen and written by Blake Brooker and uses motion-capture cameras and digital photography, is a beautiful and lyrical five-minute ode to Calgary playwright John Murrell.


Update - Tuesday Dec. 16: Here's a link to The Real Place Facebook page. One quote about the film that seems particularly poignant is from the subject of the film:
For me, your film is about my spirit. No one else -- no one -- has ever captured it so well" - John Murrell

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