Algeria!!

Thrilled to announce that the animation short film Anyone lived in a pretty how town, directed by Daniel Kreizberg, has been selected to compete in the Official Selection at the Imedghassen International Film Festival in Algeria.

This magnificent African film festival will take place in the beautiful city of Batna from 5 to 11 May.

And the Closing Gala will take place on the final day of the festival in a dreamlike setting. Anyone Lived in a Pretty Little Town will be in the running for the award for best animated short film.

Batna is one of Algeria’s most beautiful cities, boasting a wealth of archaeological remains dating back to the Roman Empire.

“Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” is a co-production between Lithuania, the United States and Monaco that had its world premiere at the prestigious Savannah Film Festival.

Since then, it has been screened at numerous film festivals that serve as selection events for the Hollywood Oscars and the European Film Awards (EFA).

“Anyone lived in a pretty how town” is an animated film narrated by the unforgettable Jane Goodall, with original music by the virtuoso Jakov Kreizberg, the filmmaker’s father.

Synopsis:

In a picturesque town, a man named “anyone” rejoices in the beauty of everyday life and celebrates the natural world. The people around him, however, are more focused on conforming to modern society, and ostracize anyone for being different.

Director Statement

In the American poet E.E. Cummings’ widely beloved poem anyone lived in a pretty how town, the primary characters anyone and no one transcend their cynical community to develop a profound love relationship. Spanning many years and life cycles, this meditation on ordinary lives and overlooked connections has had great meaning to me since I first encountered it a decade ago. Initially published amidst global upheaval in 1940, its post-modern critiques of social conformity and industrialization feel even more relevant today, when both our public discourse and our private lives are facing remarkable challenges.

In recent years, I discovered that Cummings’ lyrical elegy has deep resonances with a piece of music that is very personal to me: my late father’s final recording. Yakov Kreizberg was a renowned maestro and died of a long illness at age 51 when I was only a teenager. His last recorded work, the much-performed Ralph Vaughan Williams tone poem The Lark Ascending, was called “perhaps the finest on record” (ClassicFM) after he performed it with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, roughly 100 days before passing away, in what is now the Yakov Kreizberg Hall. While the music’s romantic sensibilities are as apparent as its nature themes, the work originated during the First World War, and heard alongside the Cummings poem, expresses both the ecstasy of the spirit as well as life’s storms and challenges. Incredibly, and almost mystically, each musical line seems to support each line of the poem, in a symbiosis that is beyond words.

After discovering E.E. Cummings’ own paintings, which are dreamy, almost fragile oil and watercolors and which are an often overlooked part of his artistic legacy, I became convinced that the transporting world of his perhaps most widely anthologized poem had to be brought to life in the poignant style of his visual art. Together with the STUDIO and Meinart Animation Studio, we spent eighteen months meticulously crafting animation in which every frame contains the feel of an artist’s hand. Furthermore, my father’s music evokes vivid colors that lend themselves perfectly to the impressionistic paint colors Cummings favored. And, inspired by the nature themes inherent in both the poem and the music, Cummings’ words are given gripping resonance through a reading by legendary ethologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, whose tender voice lends gravity to Cummings’ work and suggests that new human and social values are needed for our own well-being and a sustainable planet.

Collaborating with my father on this film, across the seeming boundary of life and death, is the realization of an impossible dream, perhaps best articulated by Cummings’ own words in the poem: “wish by spirit and if by yes.” Ultimately, our film is about that which is everlasting: the lives we touch, the impact we have on the world, the legacies we leave behind. Our protagonist embodies the fundamental humanity found within any one of us, while The Lark Ascending celebrates the eternal spirit we all carry, one which yearns to soar and be free if only we will let it.

May anyone lead the way.

– Daniel Kreizberg, director of anyone lived in a pretty how town

Daniel Kreizberg received the Best Short Film Award at the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival in Iowa a few days ago.

In a few days’ time, we will be announcing further successes for this extraordinary animated short film, including more film screenings that qualify for the Hollywood Oscars. Stay tuned.