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Comedy animation Harold And The Purple Crayon heads the new releases at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 595 cinemas through Sony.

The live-action/animation fantasy comedy is adapted from Crockett Johnson’s 1955 children’s book of the same name, with the film serving as a sequel to the book.

Harold And The Purple Crayon follows a character in a book who can make anything come to life by drawing it; and who draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world.

Zachary Levi leads the cast, which also includes Lil Rel Howery, Zooey Deschanel, Jemaine Clement,...

Carl Davis, who composed the scores for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice and perhaps most famously Abel Gance’s epic 1927 silent film Napoléon, has died. He was 86.

Davis died Thursday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his family announced.

“We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music,” they wrote on Twitter. “A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation, and he wrote scores for some of the most-loved and remembered British television dramas.”

Born in Brooklyn but living in the U.K. since 1961, Davis was hired by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for the 13-hour 1980 miniseries Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film and for Napoléon.

“My first score for a silent movie was Napoleon,” he said in 2010. “Five hours of it! It...

Carl Davis, the composer known for his BAFTA-winning score for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981), died of a brain hemorrhage on Thursday. He was 86.

Davis’ family issued a statement on social media, writing: “We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music. A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation and he wrote scores for some of the most loved and remembered British television dramas.”

Born in New York, Davis co-authored revue “Diversions” (1959), which won an off-Broadway Emmy and featured at the 1961 Edinburgh Festival. Davis moved to the U.K. in 1961 and was commissioned by the BBC to compose music for “That Was the Week That Was.” Subsequent work included BBC’s anthology play series “The Wednesday Play” (1964-70) and “Play for Today” (1970-84).

Davis then composed for several iconic British television shows, including...

The author’s books inspired Channel 4’s much-loved Christmas animations.

The author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, best known for his 1978 work The Snowman, passed away yesterday, August 9, aged 88.

Briggs produced a wealth of books including an illustrated book of nursery rhymes, The Mother Goose Treasury (1966), Father Christmas (1973), Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975), Fungus the Bogeyman (1977), When the Wind Blows (1982) and The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984).

Many of his works, which were largely based on themes of love and loss, have been adapted into films, plays and TV animations.

The producer John Coates turned his most famous work,...

Raymond Briggs, the British illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author best known for “The Snowman,” has died. He was 88.

“The Snowman,” a book without words and illustrated with pencil crayons, was created by Briggs in 1978. It was adapted as an animated television film for U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 in 1982, which is played on U.K. television every Christmas. It was nominated for the Academy Award for best animated short film and won a BAFTA TV Award for best children’s program.

“The Snowman” sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide. Briggs also created evergreen children’s books “Father Christmas,” “Fungus The Bogeyman” and “When The Wind Blows.”

His 1988 graphic novel “Ethel & Ernest,” which tells the story of the lives of Briggs’ parents from their first meeting in 1928 to their deaths in 1971, was adapted by British animation studio as an animated feature in 2016 that won awards at several animation festivals around the world.

Based in Trivandrum, India, Toonz Media Group will partner with Robert Chandler’s Space Age Films and Gina Carter & Stephen Fry’s Sprout Pictures in the U.K. to co-produce an adaptation of the classic tale “The Canterville Ghost” by celebrated Irish author Oscar Wilde.

L.A.-based Cinema Management Group (Cmg) handles international sales.

First published in 1887, Wilde’s tale is an eerie, heart-warming story with touches of humor, following Sir Simon de Canterville’s ghost, which has been dwelling in his ancestral castle for 300 years. His quiet life will be unsettled when an American family—a Minister, his wife and their four children— move into the house. The ghost tries with all his might to scare them away, but fails miserably. Moreover, he develops a deep tie with the family’s teenage daughter.

First-timer Kim Burdon, an animator on “Ethel & Ernest,” will direct.

The voice cast will...

British comedian and actor Matt Lucas will voice the lead role in “Molesworth,” an animated film adaptation of the best-selling series of boarding school books written by Geoffrey Willans and illustrated by Ronald Searle.

Lupus Films and Melusine Productions, the producers behind the acclaimed animated feature “Ethel & Ernest,” will team up with Uli Meyer Studios to produce the 2D, hand-drawn feature, based on “The Compleet Molesworth” series. The film will be pitched next month at Cartoon Movie, Europe’s leading animated movie co-production forum, which takes place in Bordeaux, France.

Lucas will voice the role of Nigel Molesworth, a self-confident, tousle-haired public school boy with a mischievous nature and a penchant for power. The character was first drawn by Ronald Searle for his Punch magazine comic strip and later developed into a series of books, first published in 1953.

Commenting on his role as the less than scholarly school boy,...

Claude Barras’ “Savages!,” Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli’s “Tales of the Hedgehog” and Peter Dodd’s “King of the Swamp” are among the sixty-six projects –a 10% increase from last year– to be pitched at the 21st Cartoon Movie, Europe’s leading animated movie co-production event, which will take place in the French port city of Bordeaux, kicking off March 5.

Projects will be offered to buyers and potential partners in different stages: 28 in concept, 24 in development, seven in production and seven sneak previews.

“Savages!” is the much-awaited sophomore project from Switzerland’s Barras, following his multi-awarded and foreign-language Oscar nominated “My Life as a Zucchini.” A stop-motion feature, “Savages!” is produced by France’s Prélude in co-production with Switzerland’s Helium Films. It tells the story of the friendship between 11-year-old Kéria and a Bornean orangutan baby. They will be forced to flee from Kéria’s father who wants to...

Film director and animator who brought Raymond Briggs’s stories to life on screen

The work of the author and illustrator Raymond Briggs reached television and cinema screens with its scratchy, slightly grubby exuberance and its tender soulfulness intact thanks in part to the director and animator Roger Mainwood, who has died aged 65 of cancer.

Although Mainwood made his directorial feature debut only in 2016, with a typically meticulous adaptation of Briggs’s 1998 autobiographical book Ethel & Ernest, which he also scripted, he had a hand in some of the earlier screen versions of the author’s work, including The Snowman (1982) and Father Christmas (1991); the opening sequence of the former, in which a little boy builds a snowman, was entirely his responsibility.

Producer Camilla Deakin remembers ”considerate, collaborative and respectful” animator.

Roger Mainwood, the UK filmmaker and animator, has died after an illness at the age of 65.

His credits included the feature animation Ethel & Ernest, which chronicles the lives of the parents of The Snowman illustrator Raymond Briggs. It was nominated for mutiple awards including best animated feaure at the European Film Awards in 2017.

The film was a passion project for Mainwood, who spent eight years developing it, adapting the screenplay from Briggs’ own graphic novel and drawing the majority of the storyboard himself. He then spent a further two years...

Bankside Films boards feature animation from Ethel & Ernest producers.

Kensuke’s Kingdom, the feature animation based on a Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s novel from the team behind Ethel & Ernest, has secured a sales deal ahead of Cannes with UK outfit Bankside Films.

The Railway Man screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce has adapted Morpurgo’s novel for the screen. Producers are Sarah Radclyffe, who co-founded UK powerhouse Working Title, Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding, the co-founders of Ethel & Ernest animation studio Lupus Films, with Barnaby Spurrier (Somers Town) and Stephan Roelants (Ernest & Celestine).

The project is being directed by Neil Boyle,...

There are three locks for a nomination: “Coco,” “The Breadwinner” and “Loving Vincent.” The question is in a very weak year what two films will round out the field. If the branch turned their nose up at the first “Lego Movie” will they really embrace “The Lego Batman Movie”? “Ferdinand” was incredibly late to the party, but could it sneak in? [Posted Jan. 1]

Frontrunners

“Coco”

“The Breadwinner”

“Loving Vincent”

“The Lego Batman Movie”

“Mary and the Witch’s Flower”

Almost there

“The Boss Baby”

“Despicable Me 3”

“Ferdinand”

Longshots

“The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales”

“Birdboy: The Forgotten Children”

“Captain Underpants The First Epic Movie”

“Cars 3”

“Cinderella the Cat”

“The Emoji Movie”

“Ethel & Ernest”

“The Girl without Hands”

“In This Corner of the World”

“The Lego Ninjago Movie”

“Moomins and the Winter Wonderland”

“My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea”

“Napping Princess”

“A Silent Voice”

“Smurfs: The Lost Village”

“The Star...

Zombillenium announced as opener; China named as guest country, Guillermo del Toro to return.

French animator and illustrator Arthur de Pin’s child-friendly comedy-horror tale Zombillenium (pictured) - set against the backdrop of an amusement-terror park were the staff are a motley crew of vampires, zombies and werewolves - will open this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, running June 12-17 this year.

It is among nine special event screenings including Pixar’s Cars 3, which will be proceeded by a presentation of footage from Mexico-set, Day of the Dead-inspired drama Coco in the presence of director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson and co-director Adrian Molina; Despicable Me 3 and The Big Bad Fox And Other Animals.

Zombillenium will also compete in the 10-title feature film competition.

Other contenders for Annecy’s Cristal for best feature film include Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s Tehran Taboo, exploring sexuality...

Author: Competitions

To mark the release of Ethel and Ernest on 2nd January, we’ve been given 2 sets of the DVD and book to give away.

Based on the award-winning book by acclaimed British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, this beautifully hand-drawn, animated feature film tells the true story of Raymond’s own parents – Ethel and Ernest – two ordinary Londoners living through a period of extraordinary events and immense social change.

Heart-warming, humorous and bittersweet, the film follows the lives of lady’s maid Ethel and milkman Ernest from their first chance meeting in 1928, through the birth of their son Raymond in 1934, to their deaths, within months of each other, in 1971.

From the socially stratified 1920s to the moon landing of 1969, the film depicts, through Ethel and Ernest’s eyes, the most defining moments of the 20 th Century: the darkness of the Great Depression, the build up to World War II,...