The Persistence of Animation

Revolutionary Cels: The Sydney Waterfront, Harry Reade and Cuban Animation

Abstract: Harry Reade (1927-1998) was an Australian waterside worker-artist who influenced the development of the educational sector of Cuban animation during the early years of that country’s Revolution.

This paper examines the development of Reade’s ideological stance and the circumstances that enabled him to contribute to the use of animation as an agent of social change.

Biographical Statement: Max Bannah works as an animator producing short films, television commercials, illustrations and cartoon graphics. He also lectures in Animation History and Practice, and Drawing for Animation at Queensland University of Technology where he completed his master’s thesis A cause for animation: Harry Reade and the Cuban Revolution in 2007.

Georgia Animation on Our Mind: A Screening of Peachtree State Animation
ASIFA-Atlanta Presents a Screening of Local Independent and Commercial Work

When most people think of animation and Atlanta, Cartoon Network is the first thing that comes to mind. However, the city is also home to a small but thriving independent and commercial animation scene. So we thought it only appropriate to ask ASIFA-Atlanta to put together this program to showcase talent from both the Atlanta and Savannah areas. The High Museum of Art will host this screening on Friday, July 10 at 8 p.m. in the Rich Theatre of the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street NE (a short walk from the conference hotel). The event is free and open to the public; The event is free and open to the public; participants will automatically be signed up for tickets. Free registration for all others will be available (at a date to be announced) through the ASIFA-Atlanta website.

Many of the films were previously shown at ASIFA-Atlanta’s two major showcases: “Roll Yer Own” and “Blowin’ Smoke,” which showcase local independent and commercial animation respectively.

Though the schedule has not yet been finalized, ASIFA-Atlanta President Brett W. Thompson reports that so far the films include:

Avery Matthews from Turner Studios [pictured above], a never aired Cartoon Network pilot. In addition, there is Hamid Bahrami’s breathtaking, hand-drawn film Traveler of the Horizon, previously shown at ASIFA-Atlanta’s celebration of International Animation Day at the High Museum of Art; Takuro Masuda’s stop motion Death of a Matriarch, made with a grant from the Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts’ Xperimental Puppetry Theatre program; SCAD-Atlanta graduate Amanda Goodbread’s Curtains and SCAD professor Hal Miles’ stop motion The Madness of Being will also be shown. Also part of the program is Mouse and Cat, an independent effort made by Joe Peery, Turner Studios animation director and former ASIFA-Atlanta president, as well as my first film, Fluidtoons.

ASIFA-Atlanta is the Atlanta chapter of ASIFA, the International Animated Film Association. ASIFA-Atlanta puts on animation events about once a month and has regular workshops, figure drawing classes, and board meetings, and also works with the Atlanta Film Festival. More information available at http://www.asifa-atlanta.com/

The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States. With more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s Media Arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005 the High opened three new buildings designed by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts”at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org.