Alex Budovsky brings the New York independent animated film to Anim’est

Anim’est 2010 is bringing a great name from the school of American independent animation to Bucharest: Alex Budovsky, one of the most active members of the famous New York community of animators, alongside members like John R. Dilworth and Bill Plympton, the Oscar nominees who delighted the Bucharest audience at the 2006 and 2008 editions of Anim’est

Sunday, October 10th, from 8:30 p.m., at Patria Cinema, the special guest of the fifth Anim’est edition, Alex Budvosky, will be presenting his well known short films during the presentation dedicated to New York independent animated film. Alex Budovsky’s presentation will be „framed” by two short film screenings, a compilation which brings together the „manifest of New York independent animators” - Avoid Eye Contact 1, scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m., and Avoid Eye Contact 2, at 10:30 p.m., Budovsky will also be opening the Anim’est masterclass series, on Monday, October 11th, from 2 p.m. at Union Cinema, with a free entrance meeting, planned particularly for journalists, students and Romanian professionals.

Alex Budovsky was born in 1975, in Sankt Petersburg, where he lived until the he turned 19 and decided that New York was a big and avant-garde enough to welcome his type of dreams with enthusiasm. He graduated the Brooklyn Film School in 2010, then, less than two years later, he started doing what he had set his heart on from the get go – animation.

He debuted with two animated videos made for the eccentric Stephen Coates, the British musician also knows as (The Real) Tuesday Weld or The Clerkenwell Kid. One of them, Bathtime in Clerkenwell, won the Jury Award for Best Animation at the 2004 Sundance Online Film Festival, it entered the official selection of the 2003 Annecy International Animation Festival, and the Ottawa Animated Film Festival gave awarded it for „ the perfect blend between music and the world of the imaginary”.

Aside for promos and animated music videos, Alex Budovsky also hold an interest for educational films for children. In 2004 he joined the HBO Classical Baby project where he made Instrumental Faces and Miro, two animated short films derived from the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Bach and made so that they illustrates it perfectly for its target audience- children from 3 to 5 years old.

In 2006, he teamed up with Jim Avignon also known as Neoangin, cult figure of the underground techno scene in Berlin and the pioneer of a new generation of New York pop artists, and worked together on the Jukebox video, the story of a pink strange looking pig with short legs, trying to free a song from a broken jukebox, a video chosen in the official selections of the Woodstock and Philadelphia international festivals, as well for that of the Three Rivers Film festival.

He couldn’t stay away from advertising either, but gave it his attention by signing the ad campaigns for Converse, Lucadoze, a British energy drink he made three advertising spots for, Bird, Amoebas and Monkey, awarded at the 2005 British Television Awards for Advertising, but also for the Russian Greenpeace campaign.

Before realizing he can draw, Alex Budovsky knew he could play the piano, which he still uses for small musical works available for downloading on his personal website. He is not only a talented animator, but also an experienced photographer, means by which he tries communicating in English, but uses the only language he knows when writing his poems.