I'm still pissed at myself for missing the NY Polish Film Festival screening of Zbigniew Rybczynski and Mariusz Wilczynski shorts last Thursday. Rybczynski 's Tango is one of my favorites (I can't believe it's on YouTube?!)

But! There's still time to catch the Kihachiro Kawamoto program at BAM Rose Cinemas, running June 1-3, 2006. Kawamoto has been making stop-motion animated films since the 1950s. Films include the NY premiere of feature-length The Book of the Dead, and two programs of shorts, themed Demons, Poets, and Priests and Absurdities, Legends, and Fairy Tales. Kawamoto studied briefly under Jiri Trnka after the Czech stop-motion legend responded to a letter from Kawamoto and invited him to visit his studio in Prague. It's kind of crazy when you read midnight eye's interview with Kawamoto and realize travel out of Japan was far more rare then, and how the kindness of strangers stayed with Kawamoto.

Also-
Something to look forward to: Animation Around the World, July 17-31 at BAM
For the first time we are presenting the best of various shorts filmmakers and festivals from around the world with filmmaker's hand-drawn, stop-motion, computer-assisted works. Programs include: Best of Ottawa 2005; Best of Animateka (Slovenia); Best of Clermont-Ferrand; Animation Block Party; and Paul Driessen Program