Cinema Soiree: Long Lost Treasures of the Tournee of Animation - Thur. Feb. 18th - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes back Animation Historian, Author and Professor Karl Cohen for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. This program will be a mixture of fine films from Canada, the US, the UK, Western Europe and a few things from the other side of the Iron Curtain all handpicked from several decades worth of The Tournee of Animation, a wonderful series of shows of internationally acclaimed animation. The Tournee ran from the late '60s to the '90s with 25 separate programs. For many years it was the only way to see animated shorts that were of outstanding artistic merit in the US. Karl Cohen and Ben Ridgway have been reviewing original 16mm archival prints from past Tournee shows and are selecting some of the most creative and remarkable works for this program. Come be surprised by what they have uncovered from the 1970s and early 1980s. Films include Instant Sex (1980), Geoff Dunbar's Ubu (1978), The Fly (1980), John and Faith Hubley's Tender Game (1959), Yellow Submarine animator Paul Driessens's Elbowing (1979), Killing of an Egg (1979), Why Me? (1978), and more!

Date: Thursday, February 18th, 2016 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com 

Highlights include (but not limited to):

Opening Titles for the 12th Tournee of Animation (1977) by Marcy Page and Richard Finn

Ubu Geoff Dunbar (1978) The brutality and outrageous tone of Alfred Jerry's controversial play are dynamically realized in Dunbar's telegraphic cartoon-styled interpretation  of a tyrannical king and his ambitious queen's  rise to power. 16th Tournee

Tender Game by John and Faith Hubley (1959), music by Ella Fitzgerald, 12th Tournee (1977)

A Christmas Carol, Richard Williams (excerpts), 8th Tournee (1973), Oscar winner

Killing of an Egg, Paul Driessen, Holland, 14th Tournee (1979)

Why Me? by Janet Perlman and Derek Lamb, National Film Board of Canada, Special Jury Prize at Ottawa ’78, awards at 9 other festivals (Varna, SF, etc.), 14th Tournee (1979)

Changing Times, Istvan Kovacs, Hungary, “The Eastern European animators have a special way of pointing up the human foibles and ironies of everything including a firing squad.” Prescott Wright, 1979 Henry Selick, Los Angeles, Cine Golden Eagle and awards at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Sinking Creek and Annecy, France, 13th Tournee (1978)

Entry Sentry, Gary Guterrez for Korty Films, SF Courtesy of Stanford University, Project on Nuclear Arms Control, Drew Takahashi, who worked on the film told me, “It was done for a film about nuclear disarmament. It was a commercial for mutually assured destruction.” 12th Tournee (1977)

Premier Jours / Beginnings, Clorinda Warny (National Film Board of Canada), 17th Tournee (1980)

More about the Tournee of Animation:

Prescott Wright, the director of the Tournee for most of its existence, championed international animation when most Americans assumed animation was only quickly made stuff for kids. Prescott traveled to Annecy, Zagreb, Ottawa and other festivals seeking out films to introduce to US audiences. His advisors were a few ASIFA-Hollywood members (June Foray, Bill Littlejohn, Bill Scott and others) and other people who appreciated animation as a great art form. The shows they produced premiered at the LA County Museum, the Castro Theatre in SF and at other major independent venues. The series were also popular in college towns.

The 1980s saw the decline of theatres showing programs in 16mm. Prescott couldn’t afford to produce the shows in 35mm so he sold the name and the rights to the programs to the Landmark Theatre chain. They produced two outstanding 35mm programs, but it was decided it wasn’t economically wise to continue producing the shows as the number of independent 35mm theatres was also declining.
So come and enjoy what may be your last chance to see what Ben and Karl are rediscovering. The collection we are working with will soon go to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science archive/museum in LA.

About Karl Cohen:
Karl Cohen has been teaching animation history at SF State for over two decades, is the president of ASIFA-SF, the Bay Area's chapter of an international animation association, and he is the author of the book Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators as well as hundreds of serious articles about animation that have been published in dozens of publication including the Guardian in England, books published in the US, China and other countries and in dozens of film magazines and newsletters.

About Oddball Films

Oddball Films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.