Caroline Leaf - Senior Tutor

Caroline began to make animated films as a student at Harvard University in Boston in 1968. Her first film, Sand or Peter and the Wolf, was made with a bucketful of local beach sand poured out onto a lightbox and lit from below to create a world of moving shadowy figures. Her subsequent films are refinements and extensions of this handcrafted under-the-camera technique.

In 1972 Caroline moved to Montreal at the invitation of the National Film Board of Canada, a publicly funded Canadian production center which allows it's filmmakers considerable creative freedom. It is renowned for its animation. There she worked as a staff animator/director until 1991. She also became
a naturalized Canadian citizen. Her major animated films from these years are: The Owl Who Married a Goose (1974) is an adaptation of an Inuit legend, The Street (1976) received an Academy Award nomination and is adapted from a short story by Mordecai Richler, The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977) adapted from Franz Kafka's story was begun with a grant from the American Film Institute, Interview (1979) is an autobiographical collaboration with director Veronika Soul, Two Sisters (1990)
is an original story and is etched in the layers of 70mm film emulsion.

In 1996 she received a , Life Achievement Award from Zagreb International Animation Festival. In 1999 The British Film Institute, under the Connoisseur art label, released a commercially available compilation video of her animated films.

Her film awards include: Academy Award Nomination (1977) for The Street, Grand Prix at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (1976) for The Street, which was also chosen 2nd Best Film of all time in the world by the Olympiad of Animation in Los Angeles (1984), Grand Prix at the International Festival of Short Films Cracow, Poland (1978) for The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa, Grand Prix at Melbourne (1980) for Interview amd Grand Prix at the 4th Los Angeles International Animation Celebration (1991) for Two Sisters, which also won the Grand Prix at Ottawa International Animation Festival (1992).

Caroline's teaching experience includes many 'hands on' workshops in animation, including The National Film and Television School and the Royal College of Art in London, and one for children at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis USA. She has also taught an 8 week course in her techniques of animation at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia (1994). Her main teaching experience was from 1996 - '98 when she taught the animation course at Harvard University.

Caroline has had commercial animation affiliations with Colossal films in San Francisco and Acme Filmworks in Los Angeles. In Montreal she has worked commercially for Pascal Blais Productions.

Today she lives mainly in London, England where she has a UK artist visa allowing her to work in animation and keep a studio for painting.

Visit Caroline's website at:   www.carolineleaf.com