NY Int'l Children's FF: Spring Edition 2012

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 15 March 2012 19:10

Written by Joanne Choi

The New York International Children’s Film Festival (March 2nd - 25th, 2012) is back once again this year with new films from around the globe. From the romantic scenery of France to the nostalgic horizons of Japan, the diversity of animated and feature films is celebrated.

The festival is packed with premieres of both live action and animated features, filmmaker Q & A sessions, and more.  

Screenings include: 

Cinderella Moon
Richard Bowen (China)
Chinese version of the classic Cinderella story
US Premiere

Based on the earliest known version of Cinderella, the Chinese tale “Ye Xian” from 768 A.D., cinematographer Richard Bowen’s wonder-filled feature debut is a gorgeous and enchanting fairytale, with exquisitely ornate costumes, dazzling scenery shot in Yunnan Province, and an underlying message that is as timely today as it was thirteen centuries ago. 

In a mythical kingdom, a girl is born. The village shaman had foretold a boy and Mei Mei’s father is sorely disappointed. Years later with her mother gone, Mei Mei is left with nothing but a pair of bejeweled slippers and the hope that one day she will get to dance at the Festival of the Full Moon. Meanwhile, the kingdom has been thrown out of balance – the moon is stuck in the sky – and the handsome young king is commanded by his mother to take a wife to restore the celestial harmony. But the king refuses to have a child with a woman he does not truly love. 

One day, peering through a telescope from his island home, the king spies Mei Mei floating on air in her magical slippers. Convinced that he’s seen an angel, he sets out in search for her – but she runs off, losing one bejeweled slipper along the way.

Screening date with Q &A: Saturday, March 17th 2:30pm & 5:00pm at the Asia Society Theater

3D animated features include:

Magic Piano, a magical tale from Poland by Martin Clapp

US PREMIERE - IN 3D WITH LIVE MUSIC AT MAR 17 SCREENING ONLY
MAR 18 SCREENING WILL BE IN 2D, NO LIVE MUSIC - Don’t miss this special US Premiere presentation of Magic Piano, the virtuosic stop-motion masterpiece from the Academy Award-winning producer of Peter and the Wolf, and set to Chopin’s etudes in celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth. The film will be screened in 3D with live concert piano accompaniment by Derek Wang and Anna Larsen, Young Scholars of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

The film, part of the Flying Machine series – and short-listed for an Oscar – is a soaring tale of a girl who takes off into the open skies and travels the globe on a flying piano in search of her father. Other musical animation in the program includes Little Postman, Pl!ink, and Night Island, also from the Flying Machine series, as well as the award-winning musical films Luminaris (winner at Annecy and also short-listed for an Oscar) and The Maker. 

Screening Date with Q&A: Saturday, March 17th at 7:15pm in Walter Reade

Explore fables from France in Tales of the Night by Michel Ocelot

IN 3D WITH FILMMAKER Q&A AT MAR 18 SCREENING ONLY
MAR 3 SCREENING WILL BE IN 2D - NYICFF welcomes renowned animator Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress, Azur & Asmar) to present his newest film. Tales of the Night is Ocelot’s first foray into 3D animation and extends the shadow puppet style of his Princes and Princesses into the third dimension, with silhouetted characters set off against exquisitely detailed backgrounds bursting with color and kaleidoscopic patterns like a Day-Glo diorama.

The film weaves together six exotic fables each unfolding in a unique locale, from Tibet, to medieval Europe, an Aztec kingdom, the African plains, and even the Caribbean Land of the Dead. In Ocelot’s storytelling, history blends with fairytale as viewers are whisked off to enchanted lands full of dragons, sorcerers, werewolves, captive princesses, and enormous talking bees - and each fable ends with its own ironic twist.

Screening Date with Q&A: Sunday, March 18th at 5pm in the Walter Reade Theater

China’s magical tale in The Monkey King- Uproar in Heaven by Su Da/Chen Zhihong 

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE - IN 3D - NYICFF is thrilled to present this sumptuous new frame-for-frame restoration and 3D rendering of the Wan Laiming masterpiece, a national treasure and China's most celebrated and accomplished work of animation. Composed of gorgeously flowing animation created by hand from over 130,000 ink drawings and an opulent soundtrack inspired by the Beijing Opera, the film follows the adventures of the magical Monkey King of Flower Fruit Mountain, a mischievous character who creates havoc by refusing to bow down to the authority of the Celestial Jade Emperor.

After stealing a magic staff from the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, the cheeky Monkey King challenges the established order of heaven, freeing horses from the imperial stables, disrupting imperial banquets, and entering into epic battle with one colorful god after another – while snubbing his nose at the pompous formality of the heavenly court. 

Based on the classic Chinese story Journey to the West, the original film was made at the height of that country’s golden period of animation and was released a mere months before the before the entire film industry was shut down by the Cultural Revolution. This is a truly stunning work of animation and mythological storytelling, far surpassing anything China has produced before or since.

Screening date with Q&A: Wednesday, March 21 at 6:30pm in Walter Reade Theater

Advanced tickets are still available for some screenings; there are also waitlists for shows. Check out the website above for more info.

For further details on screening schedules/tickets visit: http://www.gkids.tv/intheaters.cfm  

New York Int'l Children's Film Festival
NYICFF
295 Greenwich Street, #426
New York, NY 10007 (212) 349-0330

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