Documentary About Pioneering Creators Of Betty Boop, Superman And Popeye Cartoons Wins Lucrative Library Of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: A multi-part film about the Fleischer Brothers, creators of a pioneering animation studio that launched Betty Boop, Popeye The Sailor, and Superman cartoons, has won the richest prize in documentary.

Today, the Library of Congress, The Better Angels Society, Ken Burns, and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation today announced Cartooning America as the winner of the sixth annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.

The $200,000 award will go to director Asaf Galay. “Most people have never heard the names Max and Dave Fleischer, but their legacy on American animation is profound, having preceded – and also inspired – Walt and Roy Disney,” notes a release about the prize. “Unlike the polished characters produced by the Disney studio, the Fleischer characters came right off the streets of New York City: the subtly Jewish Betty Boop, the muttering, street-smart Popeye, and Superman, the first-ever superhero cartoon.

The Fleischers were the first to mix live action with animation, to premiere the first sound cartoon, to pioneer the use of 3D, and to create a feature animation based on an original screenplay.” The release continues, “Cartooning America uses visuals including pencil tests, storyboards, drawings, behind-the-scenes home movies, and the Fleischers’ very autobiographical cartoons, alongside interviews with family members, historians, and the animators they inspired, to tell this family’s dramatic rags to riches to rags again story.” Six films were in the running for the Library Of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize.