An extra day has been added to the Ottawa Animation Festival, running Sept. 29 to Oct. 4 in the nation’s capital, to include an opening night gala which will feature the world premiere of an animated feature.

Also new this year, the official competition has been divided in two: the Independent Short Works Competition offering two categories, Indie Short Works and First/Student Works, and the Commissioned Films Competition.

In response to the increase of animation work produced for video games and cd-roms, oiaf has introduces a category for interactive animation. And in an effort to stimulate and encourage independent animation production in Canada, Ottawa ’98 will introduce the New Canadian Animation program.

Retrospectives tentatively include Before and After Independence: 40 years of Estonian Animation, Computer Pioneers, Animation from the Netherlands, Warner Bros. legend, Frank Tashlin, Canadian-born Bugs Bunny designer Charles Thorson, the first-ever retrospectives of Stefan Schabenbeck (Poland) and Alexei Karaev (Russia), the Norman McLaren Heritage Award Winner, upa, and a tribute to Paul Driessen.

The selection committee, comprised of Alexander Tatarsky (Russia), Edwin Carels (Belgium), Christine Panushka (u.s.) and Adam Shaheen (Canada), will meet July 3-13 to adjudicate the entries.

Deadline for entries and receipt of film/video is July 1.