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Animalia author to direct first animated short film

Australian children’s author and illustrator Graeme Base, whose work includes Animalia and The Eleventh Hour, is to make his film directorial debut.

Base will co-direct with Katrina Mathers the film The Gallant Captain, an adaptation of his book The Legend of the Golden Snail.

Mathers with Daryl Munton of The Lampshade Collective was behind last year’s The Nullabor which won Sydney Film Festival’s Best Animated Short Film Award at both the Sydney Film Festival 2011 and the AACTA Awards 2012.

The short film has received funding from Screen Australia through the agency’s short animation production program.

Also to receive funding from Screen Australia is The Crossing, a stop-motion sand animation from writer/director/animator and visual artists Marieka Walsh. Sand animation is the use of sand on a lighted piece of glass to create each frame.

The film follows on from the success of Walsh’s team with The Hunter, also using sand animation, which was selected for competition at the recent SXSW Film Festival.

Martha Coleman, head of development at Screen Australia said: “We are delighted to have commissioned these films from an extremely strong and diverse field of applications, which demonstrates the breadth and calibre of talent in the animation industry. Our support for short animated films underlines our commitment to powerful storytelling and technical innovation by talented and dedicated filmmaking teams.”

The funding for both films totalled $300,000.

The short animation production program also funded Shaun Tan’s oscar winning The Lost Thing and Adam Elliot’s oscar winning Harvie Krumpet.

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