IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report: Cross-sector insights and reflections on the future of immersive, AI, and interactive art.

What’s next for immersive art? This 121-page report I wrote attempts to answer this by listening to what immersive artists have to say. The IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report is out now, & it's a roadmap to a community-driven, indie XR distribution network.
professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa...

L’Atelier Grand Nord XR dévoile sa cohorte pour célébrer ses 10 ans - SODEC La SODEC dévoile la nouvelle cohorte de productrices et producteurs francophones sélectionnés pour la 10ᵉ édition d’Atelier Grand Nord XR (AGN XR).

📣La SODEC est fière d’annoncer la cohorte de la 10e édition de l’Atelier Grand Nord XR (AGN XR). Félicitations aux participantes et participants de cette édition anniversaire ! 🎬
sodec.gouv.qc.ca?p=46190

Netflix Animation Studios Expands Vancouver Footprint with New 110,000 sq. ft. Office Netflix Animation Studios is launching an 110k sq. ft. Vancouver office with 450 full-time staff in a major investment in "Hollywood North." #NetflixAnimationStudios #Vancouver

Netflix Animation Studios is launching an 110k sq. ft. Vancouver office with 450 full-time staff in a major investment in "Hollywood North."

#NetflixAnimationStudios #Vancouver

Disney Inventor Lanny Smoot Sets SIGGRAPH '26 Keynote Speech Lanny Smoot, one of Disney's most prolific inventors, is the first Keynote speaker announced for SIGGRAPH 2026. #LannySmoot #Disney #SIGGRAPH

Lanny Smoot, one of Disney's most prolific inventors, is the first Keynote speaker announced for SIGGRAPH 2026.

#LannySmoot #Disney #SIGGRAPH

This 1990 speech by Carl Sagan is timely times two:

#war #climate

NFB Oscar-Winning Short 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls' Now Streaming for Free Worldwide The National Film Board of Canada is making Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's Oscar-winning short 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls' available to viewers around the world for free! #TheGirlWhoCriedPearls #AcademyAwards #NFB

The National Film Board of Canada is making Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's Oscar-winning short 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls' available to viewers around the world for free!

#TheGirlWhoCriedPearls #AcademyAwards #NFB

‘KPop Demon Hunters’ and ‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’ Win the Best Animated Feature and Short Oscars 'KPop Demon Hunters' and 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls' Win the Best Animated Feature and Short Oscars

'KPop Demon Hunters' and 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls' Win the Best Animated Feature and Short Oscars

Opinion | Social Media Isn’t Just Speech. It’s Also a Defective, Hazardous Product. Don’t let the First Amendment arguments fool you.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“For two decades now, social media companies have been virtually untouchable, profitably floating above accusations that they normalize propaganda, addict children and degrade our character,” Tim Wu writes. “That protection is finally starting to weaken.”

The Girl Who Cried Pearls (2025)

Eerie stop motion animation fable in which a rich old man recounts how he came to be wealthy. The best of the nominees for this year's Best Animated Short Film Oscar.

Written and directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

At the VFX Oscar Bake-Off this year, there was an audible 'OMG' gasp from the pro audience at two points in the 'Jurassic World Rebirth' presentation from VFX supervisor David Vickery.

They are in this new reel from ILM:

beforesandafters.com/2026/03/03/i...

National Film Board of Canada Champions Animators and Storytellers With ‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’ Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski discuss crafting the Oscar-nominated modern stop-motion fable

A must‑watch!

THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS, an #NFB stop-motion animated short by #montreal animation duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski - via @variety.com

#animatedshort #nfb #NFBanimation via @variety.com

variety.com/2026/biz/new...

Opinion | The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. Regulating the industry is useful. Shaming it is crucial.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“We must be willing to say that the hedge fund managers have no clothes and their parading about is an unpleasant sight for us all,” Oren Cass writes. “Your daughter has taken a job at Blackstone? My condolences.”

✨ INTERVIEW – ENTREVUE ✨

📿 The #NFB animated short 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐬 by 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐬 & 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐤 𝐒𝐳𝐜𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐰𝐬𝐤𝐢has been nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards.

🙏 Thank you to Nick Spake @cartooncontender.bsky.social for this interview!

Blender Foundation has announced that Netflix Animation Studios is joining the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron.
www.animationmagazine.net/2026/01/netf...

Animating Poetry: The Word-Based Films Of Ryo Orikasa Ryo Orikasa discusses how he transforms literature, poetry, and written language into animated form through text, sound, and silence.

In his films, text becomes material: letters blur, scatter, vanish, and take on new life. Japanese animator Ryo Orikasa explains how he transforms literature, poetry, and silence into animated form.
www.cartoonbrew.com/animators/ry...

Women In Animation Opens New Online Portfolio Reviews The program offers live, virtual feedback from industry professionals to early-career women and nonbinary artists across animation, VFX, and games.

Women in Animation has opened applications for a new online portfolio review program, offering feedback from industry pros to early-career women and nonbinary artists across animation, VFX, and games. The application window is open through Jan 27.
www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-right...

Venezuela, Renee Good and Trump’s ‘Assault on Hope’ | The Ezra Klein Show YouTube video by The Ezra Klein Show

Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show.

Venezuela, Renee Good and Trump’s ‘Assault on Hope’

@mashagessen.bsky.social examines how the President governs through spectacle, and the message his displays of force are meant to send.
open.spotify.com/episode/78mi...

youtu.be/U6DbiSMi6ik?...

ASIFA-East Festival, Cartoon Brew Unveil Media Partnership We're also excited to announce that we're sponsoring a new honor at the festival, the Cartoon Brew Award for Excellence in Filmmaking.

Big news: We’ve partnered with ASIFA-East as the exclusive media partner for the 56th Annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival, one of the oldest in the U.S., where we'll debut the Cartoon Brew Award for Excellence in Filmmaking.
www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/asifa...

Please join me in welcoming to the public domain such works as the 1930 Best Picture All Quiet on the Western Front, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, several Nancy Drew books, some songs you've heard of (Dream a Little Dream of Me; Georgia on My Mind), and more:

blog.archive.org/2026/01/01/w...

Anarchists of Animation: How the Creators of The Girl Who Cried Pearls Broke Every Rule—and Made Magic - NFB Blog Dive into the unique creative process of The Girl Who Cried Pearls’ filmmakers, Lavis and Szczerbowski, who embrace experimentation and spontaneity.

✨FYC -ANIMATED SHORT FILM ✨
📿𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐬 (#ONF/#NFB)

→By allowing room for experimentation and spontaneity, 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐬 & 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐤 𝐒𝐳𝐜𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐰𝐬𝐤𝐢 discovered that mistakes transformed the creative process.
👀 Français → bit.ly/4p791Wo

@echampagne.bsky.social @nfb-jennifer.bsky.social

#NFB EP Christine Noël on #TheGirlWhoCriedPearls and Shaping the Future of #Animation - the executive producer discusses Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s #stopmotion film, her support for diverse creators and efforts to sustain the NFB’s legacy of innovation. bit.ly/48yMXOb #AnimationWorld

Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles wit...

Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people's bodies. Her bosses halted her work.

Now she wrestles with the secrets that 3M kept from her and the world.

(Published May 2024)

Voici qui est, ma foi, fort amusant : en 1948, soit 40 ans avant l'explosion de l'image de synthèse et 75 ans avant l'IA, on s'inquiétait que l'animation de marionnettes, en raison de sa perfection, pourrait un jour faire disparaître les acteurs en chair et en os... (Parallèle 50, 4 mars 1948, p.5)

Ashes of Doom This short film was produced for The Department of National Health and Welfare to warn against the dangers of cigarette smoking. Set against the backdrop of a typical …

Pour célébrer l'Halloween, je vous propose cette pub sociétale de l'ONF, réalisée et interprétée par Grant Munro, sur les dangers du tabac. Rétrospectivement, le propos du film apparait en contradiction avec son objectif, car on apprend ici que la fumée de cigarette élimine les vampires !

Pour prendre la mesure de l'immense talent de Mary Blair, je propose l'ouvrage de John Canemaker qui lui est consacré.

Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans - Boston Review We live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s.

Un texte de 2018 sur Philip K. Dick, assez prémonitoire de #Sora. «The bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans—as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides [...] inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans.»

L’horizon dans une craque On accuse cette époque d’être trop radicale, alors qu’elle ne l’est en fait pas assez.

www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chro...

Le 4 octobre 1895, naissance du très grand Buster Keaton. The General, son chef-d’œuvre, est une porte d’entrée vers une œuvre qui mérite d’être aussi estimée que celle de Chaplin.

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived. ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

NEW: ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the Trump administration’s cuts to an aid program.