Rhode Island College is presenting a Festival of Contemporary Animation as part of the year’s Spring Celebration of the Arts presentation. The two-night event in the Nazarian Center’s Sapinsley Hall will feature recent animated films by regional and international artists.

April 17, at 7pm: International Program
April 18 2009, at 7pm: Four New England Animators

Rhode Island College
"Festival of Contemporary Animation"
The Nazarian Center Bldg 15
600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, RI
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The festival kicks off on Friday, April 17, with the International Program. The two-hour screening begins at 7 p.m. with a 45-minute selection of the “best of” the Ottawa Animation Festival 2008 – one of the top animation festivals in the world.

The second half of the international program will showcase the festival curators’ picks, including the charcoal drawings that come to life in Automatic Writing by renowned South African artist William Kentridge; the surreal tale of Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor by Academy Award-winning Japanese animator Koji Yamamura; a psychedelic mash-up of Rambo in Untitled (Pink Dot) by digital artist Takeshi Murata; a hand-drawn and cut-out animation titled How She Slept at Night by the Chicago-based comic artist Lilli Carre; and the poignant, sometimes shocking, line drawings of British artist David Shrigley in Who I Am and What I Want.



On Saturday, April 18, starting at 7 p.m., audiences will get an in-depth look at the work of four award-winning animators from New England, who will show short films and discuss excerpts from their work. The animators are Jo Dery, RIC film instructor and artist known for her expressive paper-cut style of animation; Dan Sousa, a RISD professor who uses a combination of drawing, etching, painting, and computer programs to animate dream-like fables; Lorelei Pepi, whose work includes experimental and traditional animation styles; and Nancy Andrews who combines drawn animation, live-action and puppetry.

The Festival of Contemporary Animation is organized by the Film Studies Program and curated by Maya Allison and Jo Dery. Allison is a curator of moving image-based art, and director of the 5 Traverse Gallery in Providence. Dery is an animation artist and curator of past Magic Lantern experimental film series at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence.

The Spring Celebration of the Arts is sponsored by the Performing and Fine Arts Commission at Rhode Island College

Free admission.