College lecturer scoops an Oscar

By John Hill on March 27, 2008 9:00 AM |

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MANY of us are still getting to grips with 2008 – but a Docklands lecturer has already marked the year with an Oscar and a new baby.

Documentary and narrative video teacher Marianela Maldonado, from Tower Hamlets College – next to Poplar DLR station – was part of a team that scooped Hollywood’s greatest honour.

She was a co-writer of Peter and the Wolf, a modern adaptation of the classic fairy tale which won the Best Short Animation Film award at last month’s ceremony. She is also celebrating an addition to the household after giving birth to a baby boy last Wednesday (March 19).

Marianela worked for six years on the film as part of a team of 300 people, including 250 animators, after being snapped up by Breakthru films producer and schoolfriend Hugh Welchman. She even travelled to Russia to explore different approaches to the 1930s tale.

The film also won the Grand Prix and Audience Award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France last year, and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2007.

She said: “I suppose the biggest challenge was to find a new point of view in order to be able to retell the old fairy tale.
“I am very proud of how emotional the story is and how the characters are very expressive.
“Although not all of my script made it to the screen, it is a very powerful experience to see something you have written take such beautiful form.”

Marianela graduated from the National Film and Television School in 2001 after obtaining a degree in media and journalism in Venezuela. She has worked at Tower Hamlets College since November 2006.

She said: “Sometimes while I am doing my freelance work I find a new way of doing something particular, such as writing a story or directing a scene, and it seems natural to share such new knowledge with my
students.
“The difference between doing a creative work and having to teach is very interesting because you have to find the way to communicate a very internal process which you might not have analysed in a rational way before.”

She is now working on two projects and hopes to write and direct her own feature film.

She said: “My advice is to understand what you want to say with your stories and films and be prepared to work really hard for many years without thinking about success and money, but instead concentrating on your ideas so that they are worth communicating.”

See here for more details on the film.

john.hill@wharf.co.uk