Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival

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Nicktoons Premieres Its Second Annual Film Festival
Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival
August 21-28, Midnight (ET)/9:00 p.m. (PT)

The First On-Air Festival of Its Kind, Nicktoons and Frederator Studios Present Original Short Films From Animators Around the World to Kick Off Week-Long Festival


New York, NY, August 16, 2005 – Nicktoons, Nickelodeon's 24-hour animation network, will present Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival, a week-long festival of shorts submitted by animators worldwide.  The festival will kick off on Sunday, August 21, at Midnight (ET)/9:00 p.m. (PT) and will air nightly at midnight (ET)/9:00 p.m. (PT), leading up to the final episode on Sunday, August 28th.  Created in partnership with Frederator Studios, Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival is the first on-air festival of its kind, and the only, on-air festival dedicated to showcasing the diversity of independent cartoon filmmaking by animators from around the globe.

Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival consists of seven half-hour specials which will premiere everyday from August 21-28.  The final episode, on Sunday, August 28, will count down the top ten shorts and will reveal the grand-prize winner at the end of the episode.  Repeat airings of the specials will continue throughout the month of September.

"We are excited to showcase the high level of global talent and their contribution to the world of animation," said Keith Dawkins, Vice President and General Manager, Nicktoons.  "We received an overwhelming response from our first festival and this year's response has been even bigger with a greater number of entries including submissions from more countries such as Russia, Africa, India and New Zealand."

"Nextoons is quickly becoming one of animation's most important festivals thanks to the work of hundreds of filmmakers and the incredible reach of the Nicktoons network.  Frederator Studios is proud to be along for the ride," said Fred Seibert, President of Frederator Studios.

The following shorts are finalists featured in the first episode of this year's Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival:

•   La Rèvolution des Crabes – Arthur de Pins
•   Hobbies – Model Bus Collector – Nick Mackie
•   Runaway Bathtub – Annie Poon
•   Unmarked – Justin Foo
•   Those Scurvy Rascals – Blue-Zoo Productions
•   Her Teddy Bear – Ji Eun Lee
•   Blue Dress – Chungmin Moon

To enter their work into the festival, animators were asked to submit animated shorts no longer than ten minutes that combined a unique look, great character designs and a funny plot. One winner will be chosen by a grand jury and awarded a $10,000 (USD) prize. Ten finalists' and the grand prize winner's film will air on August 28.

Fred Seibert, President of Frederator Studios is the Festival Chairman; Rita Street, Managing Director of Radar Cartoons and Eric Homan, VP of Creative Affairs for Frederator Studios are the Festival Directors and Christina Vann of Nicktoons is Executive in Charge of Production.  The panel of Grand Jurors for the Nicktoons Film Festival responsible for selecting the $10,000 Grand Prize winner includes:  international pop-culture icon Mark Hamill (Star Wars Trilogy's "Luke Skywalker"), Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, co-creators of Nickelodeon's hit show Avatar: The Last Airbender, Mike Gabriel, Academy Award nominee for best animated short, and director of Walt Disney Productions' Lorenzo, Elizabeth Ito, last year's Nextoons Producer's Choice Award winner and ten-year-old Noah Webb,  a cartoon connoisseur.  The six judges screened the top ten films and rated them based on the following categories: story, animation, design, entertainment value and the fun factor.  

Additional Nextoons prizes include the Producer's Choice, Student Animator and Viewer's Choice Awards. The Viewer's Choice award will be selected from online votes via the Nicktoons website at //www.nicktoons.com, whereby viewers can log on and pick their favorite short film in the Festival.  Online voting will continue through the month of September, and the Viewer's Choice prize will be announced on September 18.

About Frederator Studios
Frederator makes cartoons for television and the movies. Since its 1998 founding by former Hanna-Barbera Cartoons president Fred Seibert, Frederator Studios has become one of the industry's largest and most prolific independent cartoon studios. The company's debut production was Oh Yeah! Cartoons, an anthology of traditional seven-minute animated shorts by three dozen creators, for Nickelodeon. That project has so far spawned three hit series for the network (The Fairly OddParents, Chalk Zone and My Life as a Teenage Robot) and three features at Paramount. Frederator has more than 100 projects in active development and production for features, books, television, and video.

About Nicktoons
Nicktoons, Nickelodeon's 24-hour animation network, is seen in over 34 million homes nationwide.  The network's 24-hour schedule features exclusive original programming such as Corneil and Bernie, Kaput and Zosky and Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival as well as a roster of hits that have defined kids' and animation lovers' TV, including Ren and Stimpy, Yakkity Yak, Invader Zim, Ahhh!Real Monsters, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents and Jimmy Neutron.  Nicktoons is a part of the MTV Networks expanded suite of channels available for digital distribution.  The new channels include MTV Hits, MTV Jams, Nicktoons and VH1 Soul, expanding and strengthening MTV Networks' digital offerings to thirteen services.