Mary & Max

Mary & Max is our opening film at Sundance on January 15; it's an animated claymation film for adults about a reclusive middle-aged man in New York and his penpal, a little girl in Australia.

A couple interesting things here:

First, the filmmakers used Skype to collaborate on the film, over the course of 13 months. This is an example of technology advancement enabling the arts, rather than providing competition, as we often think of it.

Second, the style of photographer Diane Arbus inspired the visual thematics; evidence intellectual property law shouldn't be too strict, because good new art comes from old art, and makes the world better (uses old ideas in new ways, connects ideas, etc.)

read it all here:
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/news/article/the_odd_couple/