The board of directors for ASIFA-Hollywood has decided that its 49th Annual Annie Awards recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation will move to a virtual format instead of a live ceremony that was originally set for Saturday, February 26. Reasons for the change are due primarily to the growing concern over the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
The Annies will stream live on Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 7 p.m. PT. The link for the livestream will be free and available to everyone who wants to view the ceremony and a complete recording of the livestream will be available on the Annie Awards website the following day.
“When we announced that the Annies would be in-person this year on February 26, the Omicron variant was not even on the horizon,” commented Frank Gladstone, ASIFA’s executive director. “But now it is here and so highly infectious that, after much debate and discussion, ASIFA’s board of directors has decided, in an abundance of caution, to once again move to a virtual ceremony. We’ve also moved the date of the event by two weeks to give our production crew time to gather and edit the huge amount of additional material it takes to construct the virtual ceremony.”
The Annie Awards covers 36 categories and include Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Feature-Independent, Special Productions, Sponsored Films, Short Subjects, Student Films and Outstanding Individual Achievements, as well as the honorary Juried Awards.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More