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We spoke with Allers about awards season, women in animation, and why we still don't see enough anthology animation at the multiplex.

The post Stitching Together an Animated Leap of Faith: An Interview With ‘The Prophet’ Director Roger Allers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Check out this exclusive movie poster premiere for "The Prophet," which hits U.S. theaters on August 7, 2015.

GKIDS will release the film in the U.S. in August.

GKIDS will launch the film in New York City and Los Angeles in August.

GKIDS will release the mixed-media film "The Prophet" in the U.S. this summer.

The producer of this year's most intriguing and visually eclectic animated feature may well end up being the Mexican/Arabic actress Salma Hayek, who screened a work-in-progress version of her pet project, "The Prophet," last week in Cannes.

Roger Allers, the co-director of Disney’s The Lion King is moving forward with his production of Kahlil Gibran’s classic 1923 poetry book The Prophet. Casting updates were reported earlier this week by Deadline Hollywood. The film, which we first reported on last year, is being produced by Salma Hayek, Clark Peterson, and Ron Senkowski, and funded by Participant Media and Doha Film Institute.

The films animated segments will be produced by Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej), who have been added to the already announced directors Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues) and Bill Plympton (Guard Dog). Also, Liam Neeson, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina and Quvenzhané Wallis have all signed as voice talent, along with Hayek.

While Allers will be in charge of the film’s central narrative and supervise the film as a whole, the above-mentioned directors will helm individual chapters within the storyline. The animated film is set to be completed in spring 2014.

Roger Allers, the co-director of Disney’s The Lion King is moving forward with his production of Kahlil Gibran’s classic 1923 poetry book The Prophet. Casting updates were reported earlier this week by Deadline Hollywood. The film, which we first reported on last year, is being produced by Salma Hayek, Clark Peterson, and Ron Senkowski, and funded by Participant Media and Doha Film Institute.

The film’s animated segments will be produced by Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej), who have been added to the already announced directors Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues) and Bill Plympton (Guard Dog). Also, Liam Neeson, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina and Quvenzhané Wallis have all signed as voice talent, along with Hayek.

While Allers will be in charge of the film’s central narrative and supervise the film as a whole, the above-mentioned directors will helm individual chapters within the storyline. The animated film is set to be completed in spring 2014.

In what may be a first for a major award-winning animated short, filmmaker David OReilly has released all of the character rigs from his short The External World. OReilly follows in the footsteps of filmmakers like Blender Open Projects and Nina Paley who have also released animation production assets for the educational benefit of the community. Says OReilly:

You can use and modify them in any way you like as long as it’s for a non-commercial purpose. Showreels, short films, indie games, all that stuff is cool – just give credit. If it’s web based – include a link to my site. I’m releasing these without a how-to (or support of any kind) but it should be very straight forward. They are extremely low-weight and easy to animate with, all are compatible with versions of Maya after 2010.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen new animation from Nina Paley, director of one of the finest animated features of the past decade, Sita Sings the Blues. She released This Land is Mine yesterday. The short offers “a brief history of the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant.”

Nina envisioned the piece as the last scene of her feature film project Seder-Masochism. The status of the feature is unclear, but at least we have this stand-alone short complete with a convenient guide to who’s killing who.