As the most awaited animation festival of India steps in its fifth year, the supporters of the fest are as excited as ever in being part of the annual event. Talking about their past experiences and voicing their expectations from this year, some of the supporters of the festival shared their comments with AnimationXpress.com.
IDC‘s Sumant Rao says, “Anifest is more about animation and animators and not about the business of animation. Most events across the year are driven by some business angle or the other. What makes Anifest unique is the passion for animation and quality work. The very essence of people coming together as a community and sharing their knowledge has been an important essence of the event over the years.”
“With such events, in the next 5-6 years am looking at a stage where Indian animation would be recognized just like Russian and Japanese ones have been recognized,” added Sumant.
Frameboxx Founder Rajesh Turakhia says, “Anifest has always been an event for the animators and every year the sessions have always been very informative. Each year the organizers bring in excellent international speakers and those within the country as well.”
The event has always been organized to help the animation industry and students who would like to be a part of this industry. With the event being increased by a day Rajesh Turakhia is affirmative that it would be an even more wonderful and learning experience for the participating students and professionals.
ASIFA India President, Saraswathi Balgam shares, “Anifest India is a fantastic festival. Being a non profit organization, TASI has really done a great job of conducting workshops throughout the year where everybody can come together, meet, share knowledge and have a good time. They have always been consistently performing their work aimed at the growth of the community. We are happy to be a part of them and support them in their cause.”
Anifest India ‘09 is already creating ripples of excitement throughout the animation community with students and professionals are waiting for the eve to arrive.
Speaking on his experience AnimationXpress.com Co Founder Anand Gurnani said, “AnimationXpress.com has been involved with Anifest since day 1, in fact we were co organizers for the first edition held in 2005. Over the years I have had some great experiences at Anifest including the sand animation workshops, the TASI VCA, the sessions by Chetan Sharma, Vaibhav Kumaresh, Sekharda, Prakash Moorthy and by the DreamWorks team amongst others. The Jam sessions, the dumb charades, have also had great fun at the Anifest parties and bashes, the most memorable one being three years ago when Suhail & Shrirang rocked the audience with their live performance.”
“I also am in awe of the amount of time and energy that Vaibhav, Tonyji, Yogi, Ravish and the entire TASI team invests year after year in making Anifest India as power packed and as accessible and subsidized as possible. It is a lot of selfless, evangelizing work and is a boon to the Indian community especially for the current generation of students and young artists who get the extremely valuable spread of workshops and sessions on a platter. Hats off to TASI! AnimationXpress.com is proud to be the longest standing media partner and ardent media promoter of this festival of which all of Indian animation is proud of,” he added.
Resounding the same CGTantra Founder Director, Abhishek Chandra added, “CGTantra has been supporting Anifest with online promotions as well as on ground help through its volunteers who put in their best efforts to help make Anifest successful ever year. The line up of sessions at Anifest has always been amazing with subject expert speakers and topics of relevance being discussed in great detail. The fest is a nice time for students and professionals to have fun and learn at the same time. We really appreciate the efforts of the TASI members, as they put in a lot of hard work and effort to make Anifest an even better platform to learn different things and share knowledge, year after year. CGTantra has been there and will be there with the organizing team as always and we will put in our best efforts to spread the word about the festival.”
Manipal Education Animation Deputy General Manager Mahesh said “Anifest is an event concentrating on quality animation and it helps students and professionals stay updated with developments in the animation space along with learning its nuances. I expect a good turn out of students at this years event as well and I believe the speakers would add great value to the event and so will the participants.”