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Thursday, 27 November 2008 at 06:36

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BIOGRAPHY:

(B. 1938, Milan, Italy) Bruno Bozzetto created his first animated short “Tapum, the weapons’ history” back in 1958 at the age of 20. This animated short sparked interest at the Cannes Festival and made it possible for him to meet Norman McLaren, a Canadian master of animation, as well as John Halas, a British film producer who offered him the chance of collaborating.

In 1960 the Bruno Bozzetto Film Company was established in Milan. This business covered film production, advertising and television too and saw the start of a very active cooperation within a team of young drawers, animators and script-writers, among whom Guido Manuli, Giuseppe Laganà,Giovanni Mulazzani, and Maurizio Nichetti only to mention a few of them.

One of Bozzetto’s most famous creations was a funny character known as “Mr Rossi” who has starred in many animated short films and three feature films destined to both TV and cinema.

In 1965 , Bruno Bozzetto was the only Italian to create and produce an animated feature film in over 20 years of stillness, “West and Soda” followed by “Vip my brother superman” (1968) and by “Allegro non Troppo” (1976), the italian answer to the famous “Fantasia” by Walt Disney.
The film has been screened and appreciated by the American critics long before it was even released in Italy or Europe.

In the 70ies Bruno Bozzetto started devoting himself to his early comics by creating comic-strips in colour also based on the new adventures of “Vip my brother superman” and “West&Soda”, all published on the back-then renowned weekly “Corriere dei piccoli”.
These same years the author began testing live action filming by releasing “Oppio per oppio” , “La cabina” and the “Sandwich” series.
In the middle of the 80ies he made his first live action film entitled Under the Chinese restaurant” starring Nancy Brilly, Amanda Sandrelli and Bernard Blier.

Bozzetto has always asserted that animation can make hard scientific concepts more understandable to the common audience.
As a matter of fact, with Piero Angela’s strict cooperation, he delivered about 100 shorts belonging to the scientific TV program “QUARK”.
Throughout his career, he produced many animated shorts which were sold and screened all over the world and for which he received many awards including The Golden Bear Award for “Mr Tao” at the Berlin Film Festival and an Oscar Nomination for “Grasshoppers” in 1991.
In 1995 “Help!” became part to the project “What a cartoon!” By Hanna& Barbera.

Bruno Bozzetto took part to many international juries all around the world and his works have been the core focus for more than 10 thesis within the animation studies field.

From the 90ies onward, his growing interest towards the technological innovations and the 2D animation technique encouraged him to release “Europe and Italy”, the first and the most popular of the numerous animation shorts for the Web created by him with Macromedia flash.

Later on, by exploiting the same technique, he created “Yes&No”, “The World’s history for those who are in a hurry”, “To bit or not to bit”, “Adam”, “Life” and “Neuro”.
The Flash shorts “Olympics” and “Otto in 17” star Otto, a new funny bespectacled character created through a few essential traits that has become protagonist of this new animation phase.

In 2005 a new animated short, “Freedom”, produced by the Council of Bergamo, celebrates 60 years of freedom in only one minute.

Bruno Bozzetto also created the Tv series “Spaghetti family” (26 episodes of 26’ each), directed by Giuseppe Laganà, produced by RAI and realized by the Animation Band. The series has been assigned the Pulcinella Award 2003 for the best TV series addressed to all kinds of audiences.

In 2002 the Provincial Council of Bergamo produced “Sport or Spork”, an educational short against Sport bad teaching imposed by parents and mass media
In the following years, the Council commissioned another two animated shorts by the titles “Baby Scanner” and “I am the Law”, both made by Studio Alienatio.
Again on the Council’s initiative that has financed such project, the cartoonist with the full support of his new Studio of production, Studio Bozzetto&Co., and Studio Alienatio, has recently carried out the direction of “Weapons on the road”, a new educational animated short over the tragic topic of road accidents.

Still in strict collaboration with The Animation Band Bozzetto worked on a few minutes’ pilot for a feature film project titled “Mammuk” which was produced by RAI CINEMA.

In 2005 The Cineteque of Milan produced a DVD compilation of the most popular TV highlights of the 1960’s and 1970’s made by Studio Bozzetto ( “Sigle animate. Le sigle TV della Bozzetto Film realizzate da Guido Manuli “).

In the meantime Bruno Bozzetto began exploring 3D animation by directing “Looo”, an animation short that mocks the 3D Italian world with its subjection to the fully developed American technology.
“I Cosi” also belong to the three-dimensional field. This Tv series for children was co-produced by Rai Fiction and The Animation Band while it was realized by Maga Animation Studio.

In April of the same year, Bruno Bozzetto was assigned the Pulcinella Lifetime Achievement Award 2006 and along with him Roy Edward Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew, was awarded too.
In June 2006 the notorious Guglielmo Marconi Foundation awarded Bruno Bozzetto by handing him the “Calamaio” prize for the innovation of languages.

In 2007 the University of Bergamo conferred an honorary degree on him within the field of “Theory, techniques and management of all performing arts”.

Since 2008 Bruno Bozzetto has been constantly working over the very recent 2D/Flash and 3D animation techniques by creating a 2D series titled “Bruno the Great” produced by Walt Disney Italia Production for a worldwide distribution, still under production at Studio Bozzetto&Co., and a 3D series entitled Psicovip, co-produced by RAI Fiction and Maga Animation Studio which is also taking care of its animation.
In this series, Minivip and Supervip, the protagonists of the long feature film “Vip my brother superman”, are back this time in a three-dimensional shape and background.

On the 19th of September 2008, Bruno Bozzetto’s exhibition “Dal Bozzetto al Pixel” has been set up in the very prestigious Spazio Viterbi at the Provincial Council of Bergamo. It will be open to visitors until the 9th of November 2008.

At present, Multimedia San Paolo has been producing and distributing Bozzetto’s three long feature films in Dvd.
As a matter of fact, “Allegro non troppo”, “Vip my brother superman” and “West and Soda” are enclosed into the Dvd-set “Tutto Bozzetto…o quasi”.
Following the positive outcome, the adventure has been repeated by releasing Mr Rossi’s complete filmography into a Dvd-set in Italian language only.