Sundance launch for Aussie animator Adam Elliot

AUSTRALIAN clay-animated film Mary and Max will open the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in January, the first Australian film to do so.

AUSTRALIAN clay-animated film Mary and Max will open the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in January, the first Australian film to do so.

Director Adam Elliot won the Academy Award for his short film Harvie Krumpet after screening the film in the 2004 Sundance festival. The Sundance festival also launched the successful international releases of Aussie films Shine and Wolf Creek.

Mary and Max is based on the true story of Elliot's 20-year pen-pal friendship with a now 53-year-old "severely overweight, Jewish" American with Asperger's syndrome.

"But like all my films, they're embellishments," said Elliot of the film about an eight-year-old girl in Melbourne and an obese, 42-year-old man in New York.

His pen pal would remain anonymous during the film's pre-publicity and release, Elliot added. "Because he is autistic he's not all that interested in it, to be honest. But he was a little upset that we didn't cast his voice, so there's been a little bit of art imitating life."

Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman voice the lead characters. The voices of Barry Humphries, Eric Bana, Molly Meldrum and Renee Geyer also feature.

Elliot has continued to write to his pen pal during the film's production, although he laughed that some better material came through after the script was finalised. "I sent him a box of Tim Tams the other day which gave him an asthma attack!"

The Oscar winner was not ready to be excited about the news as he is still three weeks away from locking off his final sound mix. But he was appreciative of the Sundance nod because "they tend to go for stuff that can often get lost in the program, showcasing the underdogs".

"We're quite novel, we're Australian, we're plasticine figures and targeting adults, so it's not your general Pixar or Aardman animation."

The festival, based in Utah, is a major buying market for North American film rights.