Mary Dodd and Kim Bhogal Teachers at Fallingbrook Middle School in Mississauga Canada, used Zero to educate their grade six class in ‘Social Justice’ issues. Their students were asked to create artworks accompanied by a written assignment exploring the themes presented in the film. The following is an excerpt from one of the 11 year old student’s work:

“Zero refused to give into his own dark negativity and let them pool into his choices (like when he generously gives someone less fortunate money, despite his own problems). This is because he realizes that everyone deserves a chance despite who they are, since of course he is deprived of that very thing.”

Kim Bhogal shared the positive impact that Zero had on her class, “Thank you for an exceptional piece of work that allows our kids to critically think and express their own points of view, our enthusiasm has had a domino effect with other teachers in the school also showing your video.”

Click images for a larger view.

We’re super excited to announce that Zero picked up three awards at the Sandfly Film Festival! These include Best Animation, Best Australian Short and Best at Sandfly!

Many thanks to the judges for recognising our ‘little film that could’ and to the organisers for running such a wonderful festival!

We are very excited to report that Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama has watched and shared his thoughts on Zero.

“I have to put in a word for another of my favorites, “Zero” by the Zealous Creative team. What a fine technical effort! The animation was polished, perfectly supporting a smart, dark story with a nice surprise ending. The music and narration and sound design were great as well. “Zero” kept me thoroughly entertained from beginning to end.”

His review is thanks to a recent online competition over at Shooting People where Matt  judged the top three member voted, animated films of the month. Whilst we only ranked fourth place, Matt still watched and commented on Zero.

Thank you Matt, as huge fans of your work, this means a lot to us!

Christine Kezelos the Producer of Zero was awarded the ‘Ladies Kick Butt’ award at the Lady Filmmakers Festival in Los Angeles. The festival celebrates Lady Filmmakers in key leadership roles in the making of short and feature length films. Screenings were held at the Writers Guild of America Theater between the 14th – 16th October, 2011.

She also scooped the first prize, the ‘Best of Festival’ for her other animation, The Maker. Way to go Christine!

We’re very happy to announce that Zero has won the Bronze Award at the Shorts Film Festival in Adelaide. The prize sponsored by Bestfx+Boom Sound is one day (10 hours) final mix in a ‘Boom Sound’ Dolby 6.1 approved mixing theatre and one week of Pro-tools sound edit suite hire at Bestfx (with access to the massive FX library), to the combined value of $6,500.

Many thanks to the Shorts Film Festival for offering their finalists such wonderful prizes. It’s refreshing to see smaller festivals eclipse some of the bigger international festivals when it comes to rewarding the winners.

We’ve been flat out working on an all new stop motion animated short (more on that in a future post) and unfortunately, I haven’t had time to post the latest festival news. So without further adieu, Zero will be screening at the following festivals…

• 6th Athens AnimFest (Greece) (Screening as special guest at the closing ceremony)
• Shorts Film Festival (Australia)
• Australian Film Festival (Australia)
• 2nd Short Greek Film Festival (Australia)
• Hill Country Film Festival (USA)
• The Citrus Cell Animation Film Festival (USA)
• SIFF Cinema (USA)

For Zero screening times, check our facebook events page.

We’re happy to announce that Zero has been selected to screen at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Cleveland International Film Festival was first held in 1977 and is the largest film festival in Ohio. With close to 1100 short films submitted, only 127 films were selected for competition.

The festival takes place from 24th March to 3rd April 2011. For Zero screening times, check our events page closer to the date.

We’re pleased to report that Zero has been selected to screen at the 10th edition of Anifest, an annual animation festival which takes place in the Czech Republic. The anchor of the festival is the international competition, but the festival also includes a broad spectrum of accompanying cinematic (retrospectives, thematic series) and non-cinematic (exhibitions, concerts) programs as well as professional events (workshops, panel discussions).

AniFest takes place from 26th April – 1st May 2011 in Teplice, Czech Republic. For Zero screening times, check our events page closer to the date.