Pictoplasma

We were asked to present about a festival, conference, or competition of our choosing in order to determine which one we'd like to enter our final project into at the end of the semester. I chose Pictoplasma.

Pictoplasma is the world's leading festival that celebrates contemporary character design. It started as an annual festival in Berlin, but has now expanded to happening every year in Paris and New York along with Berlin, as well as a "tour," which travels across various cities in Europe.

The festivals consist of one week full of screenings, artist presentations, workshops, installations, and crazy parties. All types of media are accepted, including animation, narration, music visuals, experimental work, and motion graphics. The only real requirement is a focus on character. Here is a video with work that has been previously shown at Pictoplasma:

Neat, huh? The good thing about this festival is that it accepts a wide range of entries, and you have several chances to get your entry into a festival. Another great aspect of entering in Pictoplasma is that there is no submission fee. The deadline for 2012 festivals is February 1st, 2012. The Berlin festival takes place in April (I was there!), the NYC festival in November, and Paris in December.

More information and pretty pictures can be found here.