Italian Distributor Withdraws Animated Movie From Festivals After Accusations Of Theft

De Cola’s technique labored for some time and the rebranded movie was accepted into main European festivals together with PÖFF Shorts (Tallinn, Estonia) and Cinanima (Espinho, Portugal).

In a December 2020 interview with the Italian publication Scenografia&Costume, De Cola spoke about how she had made the movie “fully on my own” and lamented the shortage of Italian funding for brief movie animation. In that very same interview, she mentioned her visible inspirations (“I noticed Aki Kaurismaki’s movie The Different Facet of Hope on the Berlinale. It doesn’t actually have a lot to do with my quick movie however, whereas I used to be drawing, I usually thought concerning the movie and the director’s framing decisions”) and manufacturing methods (“I drew primarily in Photoshop, with a mouse as a result of unusually sufficient I’m quicker with that than with the graphics pill”).

The movie she was speaking about, nonetheless, was a commencement venture by Natalia Chernysheva that was launched in 2012 by Moscow-based Studio Pchela.

De Cola didn’t reply to a number of requests from Cartoon Brew for remark or rationalization.

Chernysheva, who’s well-known on the earth of quick movie and whose work has been coated by Cartoon Brew earlier than, stays bewildered that somebody would declare her movie Snowflake as their very own. Chernysheva’s movie screened at dozens of worldwide movie festivals and gained 17 worldwide prizes, together with finest movie by an rising director on the Chicago Int’l Youngsters’s Movie Pageant and the viewers award on the New York Int’l Youngsters’s Movie Pageant. As well as, Chernysheva informed Cartoon Brew that there are numerous witnesses who noticed her engaged on the movie, together with lecturers and buddies, in addition to artists who labored on the manufacturing.

Natalia Chernysheva’s unique 2012 movie Snowflake

She concedes that De Cola “has an excellent creativeness if she describes the instruments she used to supply my movie” since Chernysheva doesn’t know De Cola nor recollects ever assembly her.

Chernysheva first realized of the misuse of her movie from the French studio Folimage, which can also be the distributor of her movie in France. “They informed me somebody within the committee of Clermont Ferrand Movie Pageant acknowledged it,” she stated. “Snowflake is well-known in France. Actually it was chosen for competitors program in the exact same [Clermont Ferrand festival] ten years in the past.”

It stays unclear who, if anybody, related to De Cola was conscious that the movie was produced by Chernysheva, however it was evidently unclear to the movie’s Italian distributor Zen Film and producer/agent A Little Confidence. Upon studying of the state of affairs, the 2 corporations collectively launched a press release on December 5 that they might take away the movie from festivals resulting from “deep issues relating to potential violations of competition rules.”

They went on to additional say:

In specifying that Ms. Brunella De Cola continues to be affirming herself because the proprietor of the rights of the movie, the undersigned, given the antagonistic revindications, have determined to right away cease the distribution of the quick movie and to withdraw all of the submissions already made to festivals.

The undersigned, insofar as it’s inside their respective competences, will undertake, in each space of their exercise, probably the most applicable options as a way to make clear the efficient chain of rights of the quick movie and, if vital, will take any additional motion aimed toward defending their pursuits {and professional} popularity.

Prepared to revive the belief within the skilled exercise that we stock on with seriousness and love, we ship one of the best regards.

Cartoon Brew additionally reached out to the credited composer of De Cola’s movie, Lorenzo Petruzziello, to ask about his involvement. The soundtrack of De Cola’s movie will not be Petruzziello’s; it’s the identical soundtrack because the one composed by Alexsandr Babin for Chernysheva’s Snowflake.

Petruzziello confirmed to Cartoon Brew that the music within the movie will not be his, regardless of him being credited. He defined that he had composed a light-weight jazz piece with piano, drums, and double bass known as “Away from Residence” whereas he was learning music. (Cartoon Brew has been in a position to independently confirm the existence of this piece of music.)

Petruzziello defined that De Cola had requested him to create a music video utilizing his music and he or she had despatched him “numerous check clips” all through the manufacturing course of. Nonetheless, the ultimate movie incorporates none of his music.

Cartoon Brew additionally reached out to the Academy of Italian Cinema, which presents the David di Donatello Awards, Italy’s equal of the Oscars. De Cola’s movie had been submitted this yr for award consideration to the Academy, however the group has since eliminated the movie from competition with out making a press release. The Academy didn’t reply to our request for remark about why they eliminated the movie or how they might tackle the invention of a person releasing one other individual’s work beneath their very own title.

Whereas no authorized motion has been initiated as of but towards De Cola, there’s widespread consciousness within the movie competition group concerning the state of affairs and De Cola’s retitled movie is not being programmed. ASIFA, the worldwide group dedicated to the promotion of animation, has unfold the phrase about what has occurred and has even taken the uncommon step of issuing an official assertion asking that De Cola’s Away from Residence not be programmed into any occasions.

ASIFA’s president Deanna Morse wrote on the group’s website:

We’re shocked that an animation murals can be so blatantly… properly, there isn’t any different phrase for it however … stolen. It’s unimaginable that an individual might even suppose that is potential.

Our animation group stands behind the rights of animation artists.

Our animation group helps one another.

We abhor this example, the place the work of an artist will not be revered.

We stand with Natalia, and ask others to pay attention to these sorts of prospects and conditions.

Chernysheva, who continues to supply new movies, stays surprised that her decade-old movie was chosen to display in festivals so a few years after its debut. Contemplating how “simple it’s to resubmit the identical movie twice,” she stated jokingly, “why hassle making a brand new one?”