6th May 2019
Filmmaker Bruce Bickford Dies
It is with great sadness that the Annecy Festival team learned of the death of Bruce Bickford on 28th April 2019.
Animation filmmaker, writer and jury member at the Annecy Festival in 2000, Bruce Bickford died on 28th April 2019, aged 72.
Born in 1947 in Seattle, USA, at the age of 17 he experiments with stop-motion clay animation with 8mm film. Following his military service, he will continue on a 16mm format and finally release his first animation film in 1970.
From 1974 to 1980 he works on projects for the musician Frank Zappa such as A Token of His Extreme and Baby Snakes, in which he will integrate animation on celluloid.
In 1987 he finishes the film Prometheus’ Garden and three years later, Frank Zappa releases The Amazing Mr. Bickford, with animated sequences produced between 1971 and 1974.
More recently in 2015 he releases his last animation feature film in stop-motion clay: CAS’L’.
Bruce Bickford also devoted much of his time to writing, notably numerous stories at various stages of completion and adaptable for cinema.
His works will be diffused during the Annecy Festival 2019 as part of The Big Sleep, screenings that pay tribute to filmmakers who have passed away in the past year.