ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
Discover the art form of hand-drawn animation, its rise, fall, challenges, and resurgence, as it evolves through new styles and approaches, in efforts from a diverse cast of animators.

SYNOPSIS
American hand-drawn animation rose to industrial prominence in the early 20th century, hitting its mainstream peak by the late 20th century, with hand-drawn feature films from major Hollywood studios, such as The Lion King and The Jungle Book, reaching and inspiring audiences far and wide.

Suddenly, in the early 2000s, a series of hand-drawn animation studios shut down like dominoes, coinciding with the corporate push for CG animated features, the animation landscape radically and rapidly changed, potentially bringing a permanent end to hand-drawn animated features from Hollywood, and many speculated that perhaps the rest of the world would soon follow their lead…

HAND-DRAWN: DOCUMENTARY explores the persistence of this art form since then, surviving through new styles and approaches, in efforts from independent animators to established studios from the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Japan, and beyond.

Sharpening focus on the connections between animators and animation, links between old techniques and new technologies, and observing the hand-drawn animation process in intimate detail, reveals why hand-drawn animation continues to resonate with people everywhere.

Tina Nawrocki (Cuphead), Glen Keane (Beauty and the Beast), Mamoru Hosoda (The Wolf Children), Benjamin Renner (Ernest & Celestine), Koji Yamamura (Mount Head), Floyd Norman (One Hundred and One Dalmatians), and many other passionate animation professionals tell this story through their lesser-heard perspectives and first-hand anecdotes.

The majority of other documentaries about hand-drawn animation are usually produced by animation studios for largely promotional purposes. HAND-DRAWN: DOCUMENTARY is independently made, and presents a more unfiltered contribution to the conversation about hand-drawn animation.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Felicity Morland
PRODUCER Robert Fantinatto, Felicity Morland, Aki Takabatake

WEBSITE handdrawnfilm.com