*SCAPE Co. Ltd, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting youths, announced that it is the official programme partner of Cartoons Underground, Singapore's very own, and Southeast Asia's largest, festival of animation. The event has ditched traditional venues for a special online interactive 360° festival environment with a real Singaporean Heartland vibe.
It has been created by CG lead Enrique Caballero and independent illustrator, Lee Xin Li (Pok Pok & Away). Festival goers will be able to explore a virtual world filled with films, behind the scenes footage, Q&A with directors and an artist market supporting Singaporean small businesses all hosted on the website, www.cartoonsunderground.com.
The festival, which expands this year from a single evening to run across five days from Wednesday 9th to Sunday 13th December, will feature 150 minutes of animated short films as well as Q&A sessions with the directors and a conversation between Hollywood director, Kyle Balda (Director of the Minions & Despicable Me 2 & 3) and prolific award-winning short film director, Patrick Smith (Director of MTV Daria, Oscar Member).
This year, 17 works were selected from 1,321 entries submitted from 88 different countries. Films from Europe and America will make its premier this year. In the spotlight are three programmes of shorts from Singapore, and another from across Asia, as well as CU's established international programme. The Singapore programme will highlight the work of Singapore's up and coming young animators and this year will be the first that Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts has taken part with the entry ‘Watermelon Please' by Lim Jia Ying.
Among the local films competing against international directors for the Golden Durian Awards for Best Animation, Best SG Student Animation, Audience Choice and Special Mention awards are ‘foto time' by Renne Chua and ‘It grows on you' by Mok Yuin Peng, both of which use simple and effective stories to tap into people's common experiences. Another hot entry is ‘Women in Rage from two of the Singapore's most celebrated young fine artists, Chen Yanyun and Sara Chong.
“As a youth-centric organisation, *SCAPE is proud to be a programme partner of Cartoons Underground,” said Shawn Wong, Deputy Executive Director of *SCAPE Co. Ltd. “This festival provides opportunities for our young animators to showcase their animation internationally as well as encourages creative potential of our youths to drive progress, despite the pandemic. It is also a platform for youths to get inspired by other international films and to kick start their career in the animation industry. *SCAPE will continue to support our young animation filmmakers as they sharpen their skills to reach their full potential.”
With new graduates being particularly hard hit by Covid-19, Cartoons Underground is bringing the focus back home to support Singapore's future stars of animation with a partnership with *SCAPE and LASALLE College of the Arts The festival has included an extra film programme spotlighting the best of National Youth Film Awards (NYFA) animation, as well as a two day animation workshop (Animated Visions: Story Development Lab) where shortlisted teams will get a masterclass in storyboarding and pitching with award-winning local directors, Jerrold Chong (FindingPictures), Zhuang Brothers and American award-winning director, Sean Buckelew.
“It's part of the ethos of the festival to give back to the community that helped create it,” said Cartoons Underground co-founder Vicky Chen. “Animation is an important part of Singapore's future. It creates good jobs, contributes to the economy and it lets us tell our stories to the world.”
“The Virtual World and recreation of Singapore's HDB suburbs is something unique and will give people the chance to go on a treasure map hunt to discover art and animation Easter eggs! All the content will be available for the five days of the festival, just donate what you can. Then next year we can all get together in person and put the pandemic behind us with even more awesome cartoons!”
