My Dog Tulip
When: 9:00 pm Saturday, April 10, 2010
Where: HCC Performing Arts Building
Who: Mainstage Theater, Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
Tickets: $10
"My Dog Tulip" is a full-length animated film of J.R. Ackerley's book of the same name. It also is the first animated feature ever to be entirely hand drawn and painted utilizing paperless computer technology.
Tulip was animated by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger who have been closely associated with PBS' adult animation fare for the past 15 years, providing primetime TV specials such as "Drawn from Memory" (Best TV Feature Film at Annecy, France 1995), "Still Life With Animated Dogs" (2001) and "A Room Nearby" (2004). Both are recipients of the prestigious Peabody Award.
The film was produced by Norman Twain, Howard Kaminsky and Frank Pellegrino. Deanna Deignan was co-producer and Allison Powell sas coordinating Producer. Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, Isabella Rosselini, Brian Murray, Paul Hecht, Peter Gerety, and Euan Morton voiced the animated characters.
J.R Ackerley, the book's British author and distinguished man of letters, hardly thought of himself as a dog lover when, in middle age, he came to adopt an Alsatian he named Tulip. To his surprise, she turned out to be the love of his life, the ideal companion he had been searching for in vain for years.
"My Dog Tulip" is a bittersweet retrospective account of their fourteen-year relationship. In vivid and sometimes startling detail, the film shows Tulip's often erratic behavior, canine tastes, and Ackerley's determined efforts to ensure an existence of perfect happiness for his dog.
Trailer
View the trailer (2.03 min).
The Website
For more about the film By Dog Tulip, please visit the film's official website: www.tulipthedog.com.
Variety Review
"From J.R. Ackerley's droll and tender memoir, husband-and-wife helmers Paul and Sandra Fierlinger have spun an equally droll and tender film..."
The Book
In telling the story of his beloved Tulip, Ackerley has written a book that is a profound and subtle meditation on the strangeness abiding at the heart of all relationships.
J.R. Ackerley
By Howard Coster
J. R. Ackerley (1896 - 1967) was arts editor of The Listener, the weekly magazine of the BBC. He was also openly gay, a rarity in his time.
