Originally published in RealTime magazine, September, 2009.

I began writing about Australian animation in 2003, but only by default. I was in the queues for the Melbourne International Film Festival waiting to see various short film programs, which is what I intended to review. I kept overhearing the names ‘Adam Elliot’ and ‘Harvie Krumpet’ in conversations between fellow filmgoers, and noted they were talking about animation, not short film. I wasn’t aware Australia had much of an animation industry. I had known student friends who made cartoons, but professionally? It wasn’t like local animators were ever mentioned in mainstream media, therefore they didn’t exist, in that if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest kind of way. But there was an insistence about this Elliot character that made me want to know more, and that’s how I came to interview him. That was before Adam’s Oscar success, and I was left with admiration for those who made painstaking animations in a country that barely acknowledges Australian live-action film, let alone something as marginalised as this medium (it seems likely there’ll always be a cross-section of society that sees animation as strictly ‘for kids’).

There have been some hiccups. A few RealTime writers, including myself, have criticised the oft-simplistic nature of Australian animation, usually directed towards storytelling. Generally, the technique is admirable and improving, especially since the CGI fad seems to be waning. RealTime’s reviews of the annual Melbourne International Animation Festival demonstrate this: some years, the festival’s local component seemed out of touch; recently, it has held its own with the international selections. The RealTime archives highlight other significant developments and patterns. Danni Zuvela’s review of Aboriginal animation from Canada and Australia focuses on work blessed with much storytelling potential at the historical and mythological levels. Ashley Crawford declares the slapstick Dadaism of Arlo Mountford’s extraordinary work in a league of its own. Dan Edwards takes a timely look at the 17-minute Sweet and Sour, an Australia-China co-production and a welcome change from what he terms Australia’s “depressing myopia” when it comes to non-US/UK film influences. And Keith Gallasch admires Lee Whitmore’s compelling The Safe House, “in which childhood, history and politics…come seamlessly together, a rarity in Australian film.”

Appraisals of international productions include no less than four reviews of Boca del Lupo’s theatre/animation hybrid, My Dad, My Dog; Angela Ndalianis’s seduction at the hands of ACMI’s Pixar exhibition; and Megan Carrigy’s analysis of the extraordinary animated documentary Waltz with Bashir, making the salient point that having the film “in general release…is significant since animation has become a major site for innovation in Australian short films”. A couple of historical overviews serve to contextualise: Adrian Martin passionately introduces The Illusion of Life II, a 576-page collection of essays from animation scholars past and present; while my own look at Flickerfest’s historical overview of Australian animation allows me to revisit the beloved “Life. Be In It” commercials of my youth, leading to the revelation that this country has always had an animation industry, just not where you’d expect to find it.