Cape Town-based The Blackheart Gang completed an animation last year entitled “The Tale of How’. It recently received the prestigious award Best Independent Film on the British Animation Festival The animation has been shown on a number of the world’s top film festivals such as 100 Poins of Light, The RightEye Short Film Festival, Resfest, onedotzero, Nicktoons animation Festival (top ten), Animago, Edit, Norwich, Clipped, ALTER-NATIVE 14, Woodstock Film Festival (Honourary mention) Cleremont-Ferrand Film Festival and Nemo Film Festival.
“The Tale of How’, described as “epic, weird, beautiful’, is part of Resfest 2006 flagship piece for their world tour and is the opening film.
“The Tale of How’ is a voyage through a surreal landscape (which the Gang calls the Household) populated with duck-like creatures being ravaged by a tentacled sea monster, Otto. In the end, a cute, mousey hero named Eddy the Engineer bursts onto the scene to save the day, making for a tidy little narrative that is both strangely familiar and incredibly odd.
The Blackheart Gang is a collective of artists, designers and animators living in Cape Town. The members of this dynamic collective of good friends with passion for the arts are:
Ree Treweek (27) – Illustrator, concept and character developer for The BHG. She works as a freelance illustrator.
Markus Smit (Wormstorm) (24) – Musician, concept developer and writer for The BHG. Markus is 24 and has a music studio called SayThankYou.
Jannes Hendrikz (26) – Compositor and Creative Director for The BHG. He works as a compositor and designer for BlackGinger Visual Effects.
Justin Baker- Head 3d animator
