Making A Splash At Joanimate Festival
On November 12th-13th, The King Hussain Business Park played host to the 2014 MENA ICT Forum. Two days of speeches, tech demos, and networking saw not only a visit from HRH King Abdullah IIframing the importance of the industry to the region, but also as an opportunity for some creativity.
Joanimate, held as part of the forum, was a two day celebration of all things animation; a festival of ideas, panels and speeches. Billed as MENA’s leading animation and creative arts & design event, it took place in the newly finished gym complex at the very same business park, in the swimming pool. Instead of water, however, it was filled with ideas.
Project Pen went along to soak up some of the knowledge. We interviewed keynote speaker Maya Yonesho, an independent film-maker from Japan, Maya has spent several years travelling around the world, collecting footage from each country she has lived in, and drinking in different culture.
“The Middle East is totally unknown for me, this is my first time in Jordan,” she had only arrived two days before speaking, having only had time to get a short tour of Amman. “It has a nice atmosphere.”
And what about Middle Eastern animation? How does it differ to the offerings from Japan, a country with a much richer history in the industry?
“It’s very different,” she says — she is starting to understand the lack of international exposure faced by Arab animators, “I don’t know much, I mean — why is Middle Eastern animation not shown in international festivals?”
“But in Jordan, we love Japanese animation,” Mohammad, one of the organisers of JoAnimate says, butting in. “Sorry, it’s the Arab way to cut in — it’s not rude, in conversation,” he explains to Maya.
It’s just as well he does interrupt, as he reminds us of the Japanese Film Festival, recently held by theJordanian Royal Film Commission. Along with the fact that companies like Alter Ego in Abu Dhabi are scrambling to make the Middle East’s first Anime, it is clear that there is much inter-cultural love happening between this region and the far East.
Maya is charmed, but notices something she points out, “Apart from myself, and the woman moderating the panel earlier, all the speakers here are men.”
Is is a male-dominated industry? “In mainstream, yes,” she says. “It’s the same in Japan. I don’t think there’s a single major animation film that’s been directed by a woman. But in the independent scene, there’s a lot of women, like me.”
It’s a problem, industry-wide, she says, one that she hopes to balance out. “It’s important to get women into animation in general. They can give a new point perspective in films, give them a diverse voice.”
There were big smiles all around, overall the event went swimmingly, and there was a lot of positive energy in the air as JoAnimate festival closed for another year. It took the plunge of introducing foreign film-makers to speak, along with the growing portfolio of local ones; and in terms of creative talent, it’s only just scratched the surface.
Article by Chris Yeoh.
