Nobody can touch Ari Folman’s approach to animation – he, like Miyazaki, is rewriting the rules. If you’ve not yet seen The Congress give it a whirl. It is unlike anything I’ve ever seen – imaginative, dark, beautiful. I expect his film on Anne Frank will walk that same odd line. Hard to package and sell these kinds of films to today’s audience who are branded beyond an inch of their lives and won’t see anything unless there’s pre-awareness or a toy or comic book tie-in. But wow, right? Indiewire gives us a preview of the film. Believe it or not, according to this site, where the images originated, the film is trying to secure financing. Can you imagine? No wonder Hollywood is becoming a mini mall of fast food joints.
Ari Folman continues to follow his own strange star. The Israeli filmmaker will follow his spellbinding animation hybrids “Waltz with Bashir” (Oscar-nominated) and “The Congress” (a high-IQ cult oddity that will someday get its due) with an animated retelling of the life and diary of Anne Frank.
A blend of stop-motion and traditional animation—with 2D characters cut into stop-motion backgrounds — his Anne Frank Film is the first of its kind. That’s because Folman, with Diana Elbaum of Belgian-based production company Entre Chien et Loup, negotiated to obtain world rights in all languages and media and complete access to the Anne Frank archives.
