The Simpsons Movie makes a rare debut at the Future Film Festival in Bologna

World premiere of a forthcoming blockbuster

Article by Valentina Soluri

Tuesday 23rd January 2007, 18:38

Creators of the long awaited Simpsons Movie chose Bologna, Italy to be the venue of the first ever showing of this much talked about production..  Functionpix was there to catch a glimpse..

Some of the audience were disappointed in not being shown the whole film, but most of them knew that a few photograms were enough of a privilege. A new unreleased trailer of the long-awaited “Simpsons Movie”, a feature film starring the famous American family created by cartoonist Matt Groening, were presented on January 17th at the ninth edition of the Future Film Festival, a popular Italian yearly event which quickly became well-known as one of the first cinema gatherings entirely dedicated to animation and digital technologies.

Rumours of a film based on the multi award-winning Fox TV series, which has been successfully broadcast in more than thirty countries after its debut in 1989, and counts today millions of fans, started circulating as early as 1997.

Finally announced for an upcoming release on July 27th, the Simpsons Movie  is still surrounded in deep secrecy, as no clue about the plot was ever whistle-blown; it is a matter of fact that the film production is not yet ultimately completed.

What is known is that the film will keep its original 2D format: “in a time when computer animation brings us worlds of unsurpassed beauty, one film dares to be ugly”, warns the first trailer of the film, which has already been circulating on the Internet after been presented in theatres.

During the presentational event at the Future Film Festival, animators were present to show a few scenes of the work in progress and to explain the difficulties of transposing on widescreen the typical graphics of the Simpsons, originally designed for television; as well as of coherently coordinating the massive crew of  hundreds of artists from several different studios who participated in the design of the characters.

Regardless of how interesting the technical details could be, what really thrilled the audience was the new trailer, in which Homer and Bart are working on a roof in order to simply hit a nail with a hammer. No matter of how hard he tries, Homer’s only result is to keep lifting his arm toward the wrong direction, thus unabashedly hammering his own head.

New details have also been revealed, such as the film being approximately 60-90 minutes long. Most of the television staff has been maintained, including director David Silverman, writers Matt Groening and James L. Brooks and all the original actors whose voices are now world famous.

According to Future Film Festival’s director Giulietta Fara, due to its very special peculiarity The Simpson Movie is unlikely to be previewed at any other festival, while the producers will probably prefer to hit the summer season by  blockbusting cinemas all over the world.

Last week’s preview is the very last of a long running series of prestigious homages yearly promoted by the Future Film Festival, held in Bologna and believed to have attracted some 400.000 visitors since its first edition in 1999.

The calendar of  the last five-days festival also included various lectures by professional Asian and American contemporary animators, and a talk with 74-year-old Argentinean cartoonist Quino, the renowned father of Mafalda.

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