Cartoon Science: Animation Festival to be held at the RUSSIA EXPO
From March 29 to 31, the International Festival of
Scientific Cartoons "Cartoon Science" will be held in the ATOM
Pavilion at the RUSSIA EXPO. The guests will enjoy fascinating animated films
from all over the world, educational lectures, masterclasses from professional
animators, exposition about the history of technology in animation, VR-cinema
and festive cartoon concert.
The festival program includes the best educational cartoons
from famous international projects and leading Russian studios. The audience
will be able to watch not only the festival works devoted to different sciences
- from physics to philosophy, but also meet long-loved characters from
"Fixies", "Kikoriki" ("Smeshariki") and
"Umka".
The program also includes a collection of rare cartoons from
the animation historian Georgy Borodin - "Animation Futurology: a View
from the USSR". Free screenings of short and full-length cartoons will be
held for three days in the conference hall of the Pavilion. Pre-registration is
not required.
The festival will also have a contest program. The
organizers have received 362 entries from animators from more than 60
countries. The 40 best works were selected for display at ATOM. According to
the results of the festival, the winners will be chosen from them in three
nominations: "The Most Informative Cartoon about Science", "The
Most Inspiring Cartoon about Science", "The Best Image of a Scientist
Embodied in a Cartoon".
The jury of the Cartoon Science Festival includes Boris
Mashkovtsev, director general of the film studio "Soyuzmultfilm",
director and artist Alexei Alexeev and Dmitry Chermoshentsev, senior researcher
of the group "Quantum Optics" of the Russian Quantum Center. The
awarding ceremony will take place on March 31 at 19:00. The festival will end
with a festive concert with songs from favorite cartoons.
Festival shows will interchange with interesting and
informative lectures. Guests are expected to meet with educators, scientists
and directors of animated films. It will be possible to discuss the viewed
cartoons and ask questions.
Also, from March 29 to 31, the "Animation
Laboratory" will work in the Pavilion. Children and adults will create
several scientific cartoons under the guidance of professional animators.
Classes will be devoted not only to art, but also to scientific disciplines.
For example, at the masterclass on object animation the participants will learn
about quantum physics, at the flowing animation masterclass - about ecology and
renewable energy sources, at the collage animation workshop they will talk
about astronomy, at the plasticine animation — about biology. The workshops are
intended for children from six years old and will take place at 11:00, 14:00
and 17:00. Participation is free, but pre-registration is required.
During the festival, the VR-cinema will be opened in the
Pavilion. There, from 11:00 to 20:00 it will be possible to get immersed in
virtual reality: to look at the world through the eyes of an ant, to observe
the process of photosynthesis from inside a tree leaf and even to make a
spacewalk from the Voskhod-2 spaceship.
On the -3rd floor of ATOM there will be an interactive
exposition "The Science of Animation: From Wooden TV to Augmented
Reality". Visitors will see optical toys of XVIII-XX centuries — devices
that were capable of animating pictures and transforming the surrounding world
thanks to science. These inventions became the prototypes of holographic
displays, 3D-cinema and virtual reality helmets. Free tours of the exposition
will start at the beginning of each hour from 11:00 to 19:00.
The Cartoon Science Festival is organized by the ATOM
Pavilion together with the Big Cartoon Festival team.
The festive concert of the Chinese-Russian children's and youth choir "Hand in Hand!" will be held at the National Centre RUSSIA on 10 May.
