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MADCAP Theaters presents Walt & El Grupo with Disney Historian & Author J.B. Kaufman in attendance Saturday February 6 February 1 2010 |
| J.B. Kaufman is an author and film historian on the staff of the Walt Disney Family Foundation, and has published extensively on topics including Disney animation and American silent film. He will be at MADCAP Theaters to present the 6pm and 8pm screenings of Walt and El Grupo on Saturday February 6th. He will be signing copies of his book South of the Border With Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program, 1941-1948 in conjunction with the screenings. South of the Border With Disney explores the fact that millions of viewers have enjoyed Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros without realizing that these Disney films were produced for a specific diplomatic purpose: as part of an initiative to foster a spirit of friendly hemispheric unity by countering Nazi propaganda efforts in South America, so that all the Americas might stand together against the Axis powers. This effort, the Good Neighbor program, was initiated and guided by Nelson Rockefeller as head of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), a new government post created by President Roosevelt in 1940. Beginning with the extraordinary research trip Disney undertook in 1941, leading a team comprising his top animators, artists, and writers from Mexico to Chile, renowned animation historian J. B. Kaufman reveals the story behind Disney's contribution to Rockefeller's program. Based on extraordinarily comprehensive archival research and richly illustrated with many images never before published, South of the Border with Disney is a fascinating study of an all-but-forgotten aspect of the American war effort that will inform and delight Disney fans, animation lovers, and World War II buffs everywhere. J.B. Kaufman is coauthor, with Russell Merritt, of two essential reference works on Disney animation history: Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1992; winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Award and the Society for Animation Studies' Norman McLaren-Evelyn Lambart Award, and chosen by The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year), and Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2006). Kaufman was also a regular contributor to the Griffith Project at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the distinguished annual silent-film festival in Pordenone, Italy. Walt & El Grupo, in 1941, Disney was asked to make a goodwill tour of South America by Nelson Rockefeller, the government hoped the popularity of the Disney characters could counter pro-Axis sentiment there. Walt was reluctant. He was not a particularly outgoing man, and he was facing what he would later describe as his worst time: A third of his employees had walked out in a bitterly fought strike, the War had cut off his revenues from Europe, and he owed the Bank of America $3.4 million. The government agreed to underwrite the tour expenses, so Disney left Los Angeles in August, 1941, with an entourage of 16 artists dubbed "El Grupo" for Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. Director Theodore Thomas, whose father, the celebrated animator Frank Thomas, was a member of the group has drawn on letters, photographs, new footage of places the artists visited, and interviews with people who welcomed Disney and their descendants for the documentary. Thursday February 4 (6, 8pm) & Friday February 5 & Saturday February 6 (4, 6, 8pm) – Walt & El Grupo $8 |
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