DISNEY 100: The 29th Athens International Film Festival celebrate 100 Years of Magic
The 29th Athens International Film Festival, in collaboration with Visa, are participating in the worldwide celebration of 100 years of Disney and honoring 100 years of vibrant imagination and passion for storytelling.
Let’s begin by acknowledging that no other studio in the history of cinema has advanced our visual stimulus earlier than the Disney studios. Thanks to their short and feature films with all those adorable characters, the legendary songs and music, the bright-colored imaginative stories and the technological competence, which contributed to the evolution of animation, we were taught from a young age to go to the movie theater and enjoy cinema.
The journey to popularity, which began under the navigation of Mickey Mouse in ‘Steamboat Willie’, traced gradually the innovation of ‘Snow White’, reintroduced beloved fairytales in a creative manner, helped revive the musical genre with a ‘Broadway’ suit in the ‘90s and kept on inspiring younger and older audiences through the inventive collaborations with Pixar. The studios may be a hundred years old, but the cinematic magic of Disney creations is already an invaluable legacy of pop culture that will last forever.
AIFF participates in the worldwide celebration of Disney’s 100 years and honors a century of vivid imagination and passion for stories. Through a selection including the collection of exquisite short films experimenting with the art and technique of animation (‘100 years of Disney Animation’), the grandiose —inherently classic— ‘Fantasia’ and the musical statements of ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Princess and the Frog’, we remind the viewers that the cinematic dream may come true. From one generation to the next, Disney films prove that the best stories defy time and can lead us back to an age of innocence, can make people feel like a family, and become moving, compelling and immortal. Panos Gkenas
SCREENING SCHEDULE
THURSDAY 28/09 | 18:30 | Municipal Theater of Piraeus
100 YEARS OF DISNEY ANIMATION: A SHORTS CELEBRATION (90’)
DIRECTORS: Walt Disney, Ben Sharpsteen, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Hannah, Jon Kahrs, Jacob Frey
Walt Disney once famously said that he hoped ‘that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse’. Even before the introduction of Mickey Mouse, it was, in fact, all started by a short film. Enjoy rare treats from the earliest days of animation, starting with the introduction of sound and Mickey Mouse, and through the decades leading to some of today’s most popular short films. Learn how Walt Disney and his artists experimented with new animation technology and techniques – a tradition within the short form which continues to this day at the studios bearing his name..
The movies being screened are:
Cinderella (Laugh-o-gram; 1922), Alice’s Wonderland (1923), Trolley Troubles (1927), Steamboat Willie (1928), Clock Cleaners (1937), The Old Mill (1937), Trailer Horn (1950), Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1952), Paperman (2012), Going Home (2021)
THURSDAY 28/09 | 20:15 | Municipal Theater of Piraeus
FANTASIA (126’)
DIRECTORS: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr., Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen
A celebration for children and fine adults, an intricate experiment, a glorious, unique moment for the American cinema. ‘Fantasia’, the film that Walt Disney envisioned as a fantasy collage wrapped in classical music, is a legendary film, a proper phantasmagoria of tone colors and ageless enthusiasm. But above all, for those who grew up with it, this film is the splendid moment when mind, ear and gaze are trained to beauty. You hope that such bliss will not expire in our days, you consider the honor of its screening; then feel the importance of 83 years that make it such a great part of collective and personal history.
SATURDAY 30/09 | 15:00 | Ideal
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (102’)
DIRECTORS: John Musker, Ron Clements
A poor girl in 1920s New Orleans dreams of owning a restaurant. But when her prayers to the stars lead her to kiss a frog, in case he becomes a prince, she turns amphibious herself and gets involved in a story of voodoo, jazz dreams, chase and (surprise, surprise) finding true love. Unfairly under-appreciated entry to the Disney canon, it is favored by the glorious return to hand-drawn design and a run for cover to routines that previous generations loved in animation. The liveliness, the supporting characters (an adorable alligator trumpeter!), the phantasmagoria of colors and the fitting, rhythmical soundtrack by the great Randy Newman, transcribe delightfully a classic Grimm fairytale reminding us the age of innocence for the studio of the Mouse.
SUNDAY 1/10 | 15:00 | Danaos 1
ALADDIN (102’)
DIRECTORS: John Musker, Ron Clements
Aladdin, a good-hearted urchin from the ‘Arabian Nights’ finds for the despicable Jafar the magic lamp. From it comes out the greatest voice performance ever - an interplanetary Robin Williamsgenie in an unsurpassed acting lesson. The fact that Aladdin and Princess Jasmine fall in love seems a coincidence. The film that catapulted Disney into the new era was an inconceivable blockbuster 1 out of 5 Americans saw in the theaters, making it the most commercial film of 1992. It also brought in half a billion dollars in video rentals. Amazing songs and soundtrack (Oscars, both) make you sad for its contemporaries, unforgettable sidekick characters, dreamy fairytale atmosphere, wild but perfectly edited rhythms and, again, Robin Williams. What an achievement, indeed.
With the support of:
The 29th Athens International Film Festival will take place from September 27 to October 9, 2023.
