LUCID FORGE

Joseph Chen is driving to the Gig Theatre in Kitchener to do a final dress rehearsal of sorts. He’s got the films to be run in his car and he’s taking them down to the venue located in downtown Kitchener to make sure the prints are ready to roll for the weekend’s 8th annual Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema.

It started in 2001 when he was helping to run the anime club at the University of Waterloo. He realized a couple of things. First, there was the sheer diversity of animated cinema worldwide, beyond what was being done in Japan and North America. And second, there was a desire to start bringing animated cinema back to the venue it was meant to be seen in: the big screen.

Chen is employed by Blackberry maker Research in Motion as a self-described “engineering hack.” He has a small team that helps with the logistics of the festival, but the program is put together by Chen himself. His goal in selecting films is to show off the storytelling potential in animated films. “Films here in North America tend to fall into two distinct camps,” explains Chen. “Either it’s really kiddie animation, like Saturday Morning cartoon fair, or you get the edgier adult stuff like Simpsons or Family Guy. It’s a really limited range in terms of what animation is capable of.”



As a result, Chen says the program tends to highlight “a little bit of everything.” From puppet animation to 2-D cel animation to 3-D computer animation, Chen judges the films by their content rather than the sophistication of their production. “In the general public there seems to be so much pigeonholing as to what animation’s supposed to be,” says Chen. “But it’s not about how you make the film, it’s about the story being told by the film.”

WFAC brings films from all over the world to Kitchener-Waterloo. But it’s not just a variety of localities, it’s a variety of tastes; from serious art house pictures to crowd pleasing hits. Chen admits that given the prevalence of computer animation as the medium of choice for North American animated films, he tries to look at other forms, but he still can’t exclude them. “It wouldn’t be fair to the film,” he says. “We go by story and we tend to find that the bad films try and use 3-D to cover-up for their deficiencies elsewhere. They’re not going to get selected anyway.

“At this festival you’re going to see things that are of a different nature. They don’t have the big budgets, but they’re a whole heck of a lot more fun. And in most instances, it’s not the budget that determines of good the film is. We’ve seen films done by a single person in their basement, rendering away on a couple of computers, that look better than some of the [films that spent] tens of millions on productions. It’s about art, it’s about creativity, and it’s not about how much you pay to the voice actors.”



In the last eight years, Chen says his festival has gone from a showing of animated films to a full-fledged animated film festival; a celebration of the form. Not only are new films being exhibited, but early animated films are being shown as well to give audiences the added gravitas of appreciating film history. At the same time though, Chen says he hasn’t forgotten the festival’s roots with a heavy emphasis on Japanese anime, although, he notes, that’s largely a coincidence because of the number of new films coming out of the country the last few years. Overall, the program is balanced, internationally speaking.

Also getting a feature spotlight are four films produced by solo animators. “Two of the directors will be here in person,” says Chen. “We believe that feature animation is something that’s going to become more and more of a personal storytelling medium. So being able to do that to a greater capacity than at any other film festival is just us getting a bit bigger and doing all the things we’ve been working towards.

“We’re really looking forward to seeing how this film festival shapes up and whether the audience will like the directions we’re taking.”

Independent animated filmmakers are now coming to Chen to exhibit their work at WFAC as well. The field of animated movies is a difficult one to break into, with the big companies monopolizing the spotlight with franchise pictures and blockbusters. “Animators are almost like a fraternity, or sorority, and it’s among the humblest of artistic communities I’ve seen anywhere. There’s so little jealousy and there’s so much appreciation for art, that whenever we have guests here, we always have a phenomenal time.”



And on those occasions, Chen has been pleased to be able to give these animators the spotlight they deserve; a share of the credit they don’t often receive with a little bit of that showbiz shine usually reserved for actors and directors. “In the course of doing this festival, the most gratifying thing was been to establish a bridge between the audience and the artistic community.”

From a small club of anime appreciators at the U of W, to an internationally recognized festival with a unique niche, Chen didn’t just start a film festival, he opened the world to Waterloo. “I was gratified to learn that there was a whole world of animation out there and a whole community of animators worldwide that produce beautiful work. It’s one thing to know they’re out there, but it’s another to experience them with an entire community.”