Washington to fete Canada's contribution to animation

The U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pays tribute to Canada's National Film Board Thursday night, in a retrospective that focuses on the NFB's contribution to animation history.

The NFB has produced 12 Oscar winners and dozens more Oscar nominees in its 65 years of film production.

The tribute on Thursday, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., will include a screeningof 2006 Oscar winner The Danish Poet, a 14-minute film that follows a poet seeking inspiration as he travels to Norway to meet a famous writer.

Montreal's Torill Kove worked in an old-fashioned animation style, drawing the original figures and backgrounds in pencil, then scanning the images and adding colour using digital technology.

Other films in the retrospective include1952's Neighbours, 1969's Walking, 2004's Ryan and 1993's Bob's Birthday.

Charles Solomon, an animation critic and historian, will host a panel discussion on the NFB contribution to the art of animation.

His guests include Kove , NFB animation producer Marcy Page and NFB chair Tom Perlmutter.

The academy is presenting the salute to the NFB in partnership with the Charles Guggenheim Center for the Documentary Film and the Foundation for the National Archives.