Mary And Max, an Australian stop-motion animation feature, has been chosen to open this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This is THE FIRST TIME an Australian feature has been given the highest profile slot at Sundance!!! This is amazing, not only because the fact that it’s an independent Australian production, but that it’s a clay animation!
The story is about an eight-year old Melbourne girl who has a 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger’s syndrome as a long-time penfriend (pen-pal). The director, Adam Elliot, said the story is based on 20 years of letters between him and his American penpal. I found most of this information through the Sydney Morning Herald.
I decided to explore further and sought out Sundance’s homepage to see how they were promoting the animation’s premiere. Of course, the film was on a headlining banner, promoting the film’s World Premiere at Sundance. The film’s press release revealed that it starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette and was narrated by Barry Humphries.
I also learned that this would be Adam Elliot’s second time at Sundance. Prior to Mary and Max, Elliot directed a film, Harvie Krumpet, which screened at Sundance in 2004 and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
I’m looking forward to following the success of Mary and Max beyond Sundance and the festival circuit.
Also, check out the film's super cool website: www.maryandmax.com
2 comments:
I checked out the site -- it's awesome! The productions fakts are very interesting and the last ones mentioned (about muffins and "tears") are hilarious! The zipper for the scroll bar is very creative. If the web page is that cool, I can just imagine how the movie will be. Perhaps it will be a future screening in the Aussie cinema class...
FYI I did a post on Harvey Krumpet, so you can see it on here the title is "then there are others"
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