What the heck is RE-CYCLING?
A unique
experiment, an intriguing example of international cooperation, a game.
Ten different artists, from ten different European
countries, have been asked to participate in a challenging task: narrating the
story of an object they do not know anything about in a ten minutes animation
film, drawing directly on the celluloid.
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Our story
On a
freezing Wednesday afternoon last winter we were sipping from our hot smoking
tea cups, and suddenly a flashy thought popped up into our minds:
“wouldn’t it be amazing if we gathered ten great
authors for a brand new, fresh and unique experiment in the adventurous field
of ANIMATION MOVIES?”
And
then we thought:
“why call it an ‘experiment’, when we can make it way
more fun transforming it into a GAME?”.
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And,
lastly: “Gee, why don’t we make it even
more challenging and awesome using the good ol’ celluloid film? It's the 100th anniversary of Norman McLaren's birth after all!”
So
that was it: the seed was planted, the idea was born into our mind, and all we
had to do was feeding and breeding it. It was all very exciting; we couldn’t
wait to see the results of our brainwave!
First,
we travelled the seven seas to find the finest, most interesting European
artists in the field of animation cinema. We searched carefully: we wanted to
work with someone curious, bold, with a
buzzing mind and a distinctive style. And there they were, all that we had
been looking for:
Špela Čadež (Slovenia)
Rastko Ćirić (Serbia)
Vessela Dantcheva (Bulgaria)
Magda Guidi
(Italy)
Joni Männistö
(Finland)
Regina Pessoa
(Portugal)
Ülo Pikkov
(Estonia)
Marina Rosset
(Switzerland)
Gábor Ulrich
(Hungary)
Petra Zlonoga
(Croatia)
For various reasons, these names (see the slideshow at the end) perfectly
represented the soul of the film we were trying to create: all of them were fresh,
hungry, driven, and all of their styles were unique and remarkable.
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We
squeezed our minds to extract all the juice and we started cooking up the
recipe for our lush game. Step by step, the game phases began to get off to a
good start, and our project weighed the anchor:
1.
Each
artist had to choose one item related to the everyday life in his or her
country and send it to the Re-Cycling Team.
We wanted something symbolic and not at all
predictable - like, ehr, a mandolin from Italy or an alphorn from Switzerland.
No no no, we wanted something personal, something meaningful and special that
had its own peculiar story.
2.
After
receiving the ten objects, our team shuffled them, picked them at random and
each one was sent to a different artist.
This way, every one of the authors received something chosen and sent by
one of his or fellows artists in the first place.
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(Watch Joni Männistö having SO much fun with the item he received!)
- No
information about the original provenience of the items was given to the
ones who received them.
The objects were meant to be “mysterious”, as well as their legitimate
owners. We wanted the artists to take their imagination wherever they wanted,
without being influenced by anything. Plus, the results would have been even
more surprising and unpredictable this way (Mistery! Intrigue! Suspense!).
- (Fire
in the hole, here begins the most exciting part)! Each artist started
working on his own film: one minute to narrate the story of the objects that
they “adopted”.
So the object lives another life, fills another story, assumes another
meaning. Every artist re-invents it, “re-cycles”
it.
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(A sneak peek of Rastko Ćirić's work. Curious, huh?)
- The
ten authors drew or scratch their movies directly on the celluloid, using
negative or positive film (or both).
Should we talk about the fascination of the celluloid, or explain how it
felt to touch with our hands the very metaphor for the history of cinema? Do we
need to?
And
this brings us pretty much to the present days, after we collected the amazing
1’ movies from all over Europe. The “Re-Cycling” adventure goes on…
What happens next?
Now “Re-Cycling” must go through a post-production
stage.
We
will cut, assemble, digitalize, and we would like to add an original score,
composed by Andrea Martignoni and played by the legendary Zerorchestra from Pordenone.
The
final result will be a 10’ short movie, with its own original soundtrack and the
opening and ending credits designed by Giulio Calderini and Michele Bernardi.
The
aim is to make this film travel: it had begun to wander across Europe before it
was even born, when it was just a piece of blank film, so its very nature is to
go and discover the world.
We will
start our journey from Ljubljana (SLO): we already have a cooperation with
Animateka - International Animated Film Festival, which will lend us the
screen for a premiere during its next
edition (that will take place from the 8th to the 14th of
December, 2014).
Then
the film will travel across Friuli Venezia Giulia (ITALY) for the Piccolo Festival Animazione, in Udine (where the viewing will be
associated with an exhibition at Visionario), Pordenone, Trieste and Gorizia next winter.
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What are our hopes and expectations?
We want it to be cool enough to be presented to a bunch of festivals around Europe and to win all of them!
We want it to be enjoyable enough to make all of you smile and laugh and dream and jump on your seats.
We want it beautiful enough to make all our friends jealous and green with envy forever.
YOU CAN MAKE ALL OF THIS HAPPEN: COME PLAY WITH US!
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(Wonder what Vessela Dantcheva is cooking up for us...)
What we need the money for:
The
money will be used for:
-
The
POST-PRODUCTION, and especially the SOUNDTRACK
We will need “a few” extra bucks to rent a recording studio, to buy
pizza for musicians and technicians, and to have all the first-class
instruments to make our film sound amazing.
Our dream is to buck the film up with a travelling exhibition, that
would allow us to tell our entire story, showing the storyboards, the
mysterious items, and all the documentation we collected on the way.
Knowing what went on behind the scenes gives a full and much more
engaging idea about the very meaning of the film.
Wouldn’t it be cool to print a few more copies of the film in DVD or Blu-Ray,
spread them anywhere and conquer the universe?
-
BOILING
CUPS OF TEA FOR THE CREW
If tea gives us such great ideas, we would need more to have new,
brilliant inspirations!
RE-CYCLING
CAN RISE AND SHINE WITH YOUR CONTRIBUTION!
DON’T BE SHY AND MAKE AN OFFER!
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Geniuses at work (watch the slideshow!):
The Re-Cycling Team:
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+ our wonderful producer Paolo Polesello, and executive assistant Fosca Pozzar Colinassi (she is the girl hidden behind the computer screen).