ITFS - Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart 2009

Date: 5th to 10th May

It has been a while now, but the school trip was a very memorable one. This was my first visit to fly into another country to attend a film festival, and hopefully will be the first of many more.

In those fully packed days of mostly in and out of cinemas and screenings, I hardly took any photographs, but here are a few of the lovely city.

The city by night.

The cinemas that we spent a substantial amount of time in. (The same cinema sign that we saw hit by lightning one of the afternoons.)

Some other interesting sights abound in the city, particularly with street performers. Alas I failed to capture any decent pictures to share. Although nothing special, I just like this stag.

Spiderman! I saw him when I was sleeping on a comfortable sofa in a bookshop between screening (can't remember if it is Borders).

Two of my lively friends from UWE, first year animation with a 'pony'.

One of the things I do enjoy very much about Stuttgart is the summer grass where you can lazed around with friends under the sun, that wasn't too hot.

And share watermelons too.

I enjoy looking at the celestial bodies when I'm outdoors. Our nearest star, the sun.

And the moon.

And the Doppelgänger of the moon.

Although I skipped Coraline's German premier, where Henry Selick was present and presenting, I did manage to get some good look at the film's puppets when it wasn't too crowded. The workmanship of these puppets were marvelous. To paint away the seams around Coraline's eyes would be quite as labor intensive.

Other highlights for the festival was to be able to attend the Disney lectures on Bolt, one of the recent Disney offerings I'm fond of. What's not to like about a big white wolf-looking dog?

Before our departure from Germany, it was time for a group shot in the airport.

Animators are animated people!

Simply meeting passionate people about what they do, something as consuming as film making and animation, from across the globe is the very inspiring! I would certainly like to return to Stuttgart again and maybe visit other festivals like Annecy or Ottawa too.

Between Stuttgart and London

I went with UWE to visit ITFS - Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart 2009 back in May this year. Here is a follow up to my previous flight journey entry, the return trip from Germany to UK.

We took off from Stuttgart International Airport in a British Airways airbus at about 5pm, the very hour when Stuttgart tends to rain heavily, on cue, most days we were there.

The storm clouds loomed closer.

And it begun to pour, with flashes and roars.

I was quite excited to take off in a storm having just seen lightnings striking monuments and cinema buildings the previous days. The spray of water behind a charging aircraft is huge. This a case when the tremendous energy needed to lift a metal bird off the earth was made visible.

Off we go, right through the pelting rain.

Rising above the skies in Germany and finally soaring above the storm,

Into a completely different world above that seemed so calm.

We entered the domain of the clouds, an ever changing landscape.

Crossing the English channel.

Back into the skies of UK.

Descending through the cloud barriers, I could almost reach out and touch those woolly giant floating sheep.

UK from above, approaching from the southeast, looks very densely developed.

Our gentle descent into more pastoral scenery.

On the runways of Heathrow.

Another plane landed as ours eased into a halt by Terminal 5.

Back inside the building on solid ground.

In Neverwhere, the premise was the existence of a London Below, where people who fell through the cracks ended up in. I wonder if there is a London Above, or any cities or castles in the air.