Adam Elliot and Melanie Combs are returning to Park City, Utah with their clay-animated feature Mary and Max. The feature, voiced my Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Oscar nominee Toni Collette, opens the 25th Sundance Film Festival, January 15, 2009.
The story is a portrait of global friendship that follows a 20-year, pen-pal correspondence between an 8-year-old girl in Melbourne and an obese, 42-year-old man in New York
Australian animator Adam Elliot screened his short Harvie Krumpet at the 2004 Sundance, and then went on to win the Oscar.
The Black Balloon, an award winning Australian film, is a little independent gem about two brothers in a family with a very pregnant mother (Toni Collette) and a military father (Erik Thomson). They have just moved into a new home. The youngest brother Thomas (Rhys Wakefield) is a kind, handsome teenager while the other brother Charlie (Luke Ford) is slightly older but autistic.
Thomas is a new student in High School and wants to fit in. Charlie embarrasses Thomas.
The movie is about the relationship between these two brothers, but it underscores how it affects Thomas, played realistically and brilliantly by Wakefield.
The fact that the family moves so much causes most of the family problems. If they stayed in one community to adjust as an entity, everything would be far easier for everyone even the neighbors.
Thomas meets a beautiful girl named Jackie (Gemma Ward) played innocently, but with a perspective that is refreshing for Thomas. They begin a relationship.
Jackie cares and understands about the two brothers. She is drawn to Thomas’ family even though they are not a normal family. She has no real family life. All she has is her father who is rarely around. Jackie wants to fit in with Thomas’ family even though the undercurrent of Charlie’s autistic weighs Thomas and her relationship down.
The movie is by no means an upbeat movie. Yet it is a well-made movie. Every scene is needed in the film. The story is true to heart as the director, Elissa Down, keeps the pace of the film tense and edgy.
The Black Balloon won several awards including the Best Feature Film at the International Berlin Film Festival. For more information about the film visit The Black Balloon official website.
A favorite actress of mine, Toni Collette, is set to star with John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph in Sam Mendes’ upcoming relationship comedy. Collette plays a college professor and close family friend of a couple (Krasinski and Rudolph) canvasing the country to find the best place to raise their unborn child. She’s convinced that their kid will end up dysfunctional no matter where it’s raised, according to Hollywood Reporter.Cheryl Hines also will appear in the untitled feature, which is set to begin filming this month in Connecticut.
