The Computer Animation Festival is celebrating its 36th year as an internationally renowned forum for presentation of the world’s most innovative and stimulating computer-generated animated films. The festival also offers a wide spectrum of genres: narrative animation, medical visualizations, video game and simulations demonstrated in real-time, music videos, promotional spots, and many others can be seen in one location over the course of five days. If you can only attend one animation festival this year, SIGGRAPH 2009 is the must-see event. For its second year in a row, the festival is open to the general public in addition to conference attendees.
The festival proudly presents cutting-edge, short- and long-form films that have been created or enhanced by the use of digital imaging tools. The films combine interesting stories, characters, and/or experimental subject matter with engaging graphics that draw the audience into both the subject and the image. The films may contain elements of live action or other components besides those created with a computer, but as the whole, they reveal a portal into the world of moving digital images.
The festival presents both Competition Films and Invited Films. Invited films are selected by committee rather than by submission.
For SIGGRAPH 2009, the animation festival is introducing two new sections: Real-Time Rendering, devoted to work produced interactively in real time; and Visual Music, which includes music visualizations and other artworks that combine music and images into a captivating multi-sensory experience. We are also emphasizing music videos.
Presentations and discussions on the process of creating films, behind-the-scenes developments, virtual tools, production-related art, and related subjects are offered in the Computer Animation Festival’s presentation rooms. Retrospectives and documentaries about computer graphics visionaries and their tools are also featured.
This year the festival’s presentations and discussions will have a special focus on digital archiving: the history of archiving and current methods of preserving visual elements such as film and video.
The Competition Films section of the Computer Animation Festival is an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences qualifying festival for the Best Animated Short Film award.
