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PC / Mac CD-ROMs

 

"Croatian Tales of Long Ago,
Part One"

Croatian Tales, Part One

More Information...

"Croatian Tales of Long Ago,
Part Two"

Croatian Tales, Part Two

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The PC / Mac CD-ROMs contain eight animated interactive stories, cartoons and games, based on the fairytales from the book "Croatian Tales of Long Ago", written by "the Slavic Tolkien" - Ivana Brlić Mažuranić and first published in 1916. The animations were done by international team of animators, illustrators, musicians, programmers, actors etc. from all around the world. The CDs also include many extra materials.

  
New!
Deluxe editions of each fairytale
from the project "Croatian Tales of Long Ago"

 

"Neva"
 
book + theatre + coloring book + DVD + Audio CD + ...

English, German and Croatian

 

"Neva"

More information...
 

 


"Stribor's Forest"

 
book + DVD + Audio CD + ...

English, German, Croatian

Paket "Šuma Striborova"

More information...
 

 
The deluxe editions of "Neva" and "Stribor's Forest" are available in 3 languages (English, German, Croatian) and include a book, DVD, audio CD and many surprises. We will publish simmilar packages for all other fairy tales from the "Croatian Tales of Long Ago" project.
 
 
 

  • AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

 
The project was awarded or presented on more than 20 animation and new media festivals, including the most famous ones such as FlashForward, Annecy, Ottawa, Seoul, Flashinthecan in Toronto and other:
 
 
 

  • AWARDS
  •  
    - FlashForward2002 San Francisco - the project won in the category "Story"! Cartoon "Neva" by Edgar Beals was a finalist in the category "Cartoon" at the same festival

    - NetFestival 2002, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - winner in the "Story" category

    - Golden Award of Montreux 2003, Switzerland - CD-ROM "Croatian Tales, Part One" won Finalist Award Certificate in Web/Multimedia category

    - LuccaComics&Games 2004, Lucca, Italy - "Il Miglior Opera Multimediale" (the best multimedia work of the year)

    - International Family Film Festival 2007, Hollywood, USA - the cartoon "Regoch" by Helena Bulaja won best foreign short animation award

    - New Media Festival 2002, Brudenell, Canada - "Neva" won honorable mention

    - Site of the Month at www.davidbowie.com - in July 2003

    - Zagreb City Award 2003 to project producers Helena and Zvonimir Bulaja

    - 12th Festival of Croatian Film, Zagreb 2003 - special award for promoting ethical values in film

    - "Nobiliska" 2003, a prize for publishing project of the year (Čakovec, Croatia)
     
    - "Ovca u kutiji" ("Sheep in A Box") - special award for design of the year 2007 for deluxe edition of "Stribor's Forest"
     
    - "Kiklop" - deluxe edition of "Stribor's Forest" awarded in two categories - best design and best children book of 2007

     
     
     
  • COMPETITION FINALIST
  •  
    - Festival International du film d'animation 2002, Annecy, France - the cartoons "Quest" and "Stribor's Forest" were FINALISTS of the Internet Film competition

    - Ottawa Int. Festival of Animated Film 2002 - the cartoon "Quest" was a FINALIST of the Internet Film competition

    - Ars Electronica 2002, Linz, Austria - FINALIST of the "Net Projects" competition

    - Hamburg Film Festival 2002 / Flash Award - FINALIST in two categories: linear ("Yagor") and interactive ("Jaglenac & Rutvica")

    - FlashintheCan 2002, Toronto, Canada - cartoon "Quest" was finalist in the "Cartoon" category

    - FlashintheCan 2003, Toronto, Canada - FINALIST in the "Story" category

    - SXSW Interactive 2003, Austin, Texas - FINALIST in the Animation / Cartoon category for the Web Award

    - Festival Videoformes 2003, Clermont-Ferrand, France - FINALIST of the New Media Competition

    - SICAF 2003, Seoul, Korea - the cartoons "Quest" and "Stribor's Forest" were FINALISTS of the Internet Film competition

    - Future Film Festival 2004, Bologna, Italy - FINALIST of the "Future Web Festival" (films for the Internet)

    - Anti Film Fest 2004, Prague, Czech Republic - "Fisherman Plunk" was in competition

    - Imagimer 2005, Saint-Cast, Brittany, France - "Fisherman Plunk" was in competition

    - Euroshorts 2006, Warsaw, Poland - "Regoch" was in competition in experimental category

    - Reel Women International Film Festival 2007, Los Angeles, USA - "Regoch" was in competition in shorts category

    - Aarhus International Festival of Independent Arts 2007, Aarhus, Denmark - "Regoch" in "d'Arte" program

    - Imagining Ourselves Online Film Festival 2007, San Francisco, USA - "Regoch" in competition
     
     
     
  • PROJECT PRESENTATIONS
  •  
    - 11th Stuttgart Int. Festival of Animated Film, 2002
    - project presentation

    - Krakow 2002, Int. Festival of Animated Film, Poland - project presentation

    - 15th Animafest 2002, Zagreb - project presentation

    - Festival der Nationen 2003, Ebensee, Austria - project presentation

    - Dust or Magic Conference, Bologna Book Fair 2003 - project presentation

    - Festival eDIT | VES 2003, Frankfurt, Germany - project presentation

    - Mountain Film Festival 2004, Trento, Italy - part of the exhibition "18° Rassegna Internazionale dell'Editoria di Montagna 2004"

    - "Dust or Magic" Conference 2004, Oxford, UK - project presentation

    - Festival CartoonClub 2004, Rimini, Italy - project presentation

    - Festival Fiabesque 2005/2006, Peccioli, Italy - project presentation and screening of the cartoons (on January 7th, 2006)

    - Media Design School, Auckland, New Zealand - project presentation and screening of the cartoons (on February 15th, 2007)
     
    (For a more detailed list of awards, please click here)
     
     
     
     
     
  • REVIEWS

... of "Neva":
 

From the Bulaja's manufacture we got another real sensation for children!

 
Parents of 4 children, the Bulajas understand better than anyone else the sensibility of the modern kids, which from their early days sit in front of computer and TV screens. But with their products they offer them the entrance into the magic world of classical fairy tales, where the kids can practice their creativity in a completely modern way.

Pavica Knezović Belan, Jutarnji list
(leading Croatian newspapers; the whole review is available here...)

 
... of "Stribor's Forest":

 

Stribor for the future generations

 
New product from Bulaja Publishing, package "Stribor" with an illustrated book based on the cartoon by the Scottish animator and designer Alistair Keddie, is an experiment for kids: how are they going to respond to combination of the comic strip based on the flash animation and the original text?
 
Well, great, just as well as on Keddie's extraordinary, simple and funny film.

Branimira Lazarin, Jutarnji list, December 2007
(the whole review - in Croatian - is available here...)

 
'Stribor's Forest' package will keep you entertained for many hours and take you back to childhood, but also provide an insight in current trends in animation, and impress you as a great work of art - which has become a norm for multimedia projects signed by the Bulajas.

Sanja Radović, PC Chip, December 2007
(the whole review - in Croatian - is available here...)

 
If you wander what we want for Christmass, the new product from the Bulajas is just what we would put under the tree to ourselves!
 
The new multimedia publication from our favourite publisher Bulaja has simply blown us away - even before we opened it. ...
 
We love it, that's all!

Sanja Radović, Plan B, December 2007
(the whole review - in Croatian - is available here...)

 
... of "Croatian Tales of Long Ago" project:

 
Every animation on this CD - indeed, every animation in the entire project - is worth seeing for its own sake; but when they are viewed in conjunction with the original Tales, and the background information about Mazuranic herself, then a much more rich and complex picture emerges. This is a project with genuine popular appeal, which is bound to engage both children and adults: but it is also a slice of literary history, a valuable reminder of the importance of fairy stories to our literary traditions, and an introduction to the work, within that genre, of one of the best-known and best-loved Croatian authors.

Edward Picot: "Twice-told Tales"
The Hyperliterature Exchange, UK
(the whole review is available here...)
 

"Croatian Tales" is by far one of the best collections of flash-animated interactive stories to date.
I personally feel that the collection of fairy tales enriches the lives of everyone while at the same time promotes a multicultural experience.
Helena Bulaja has done an amazing job of collecting a group of talented and unique animators to bring to life fairy tales from the Croatian literary work of Ivana Brlic Mazuranic.
I eagerly await Helena's next project.

Nicholas Da Silva,
Zoolook - principal / publisher
FlashTV! - founder / creative director
Flash Film Festival FlashForward2002,
San Francisco - jury member
 

"Croatian Tales of Long Ago" signals a positive change in the art of animation: digital innovation, cultural expression, and, best of all, international cooperation.

Steven Withrow,
author of the book
"Toon Art: The Graphic Art
of Digital Cartooning"
,
Watson-Guptill, New York, 2003

   

This collection of funny, touching and cool films is the Croatian cultural trump card of the decade!

Jurica Pavicic,
Jutarnji list
(leading Croatian newspapers)
 

Taking care of the heritage for Bulajas means a hedonistic space of pleasure and creation where even the classics can be cool and sexy... They managed to get seven promising animators from three continents to make cartoons based on Ivana Brlić Mažuranić's stories. And guess what! The cartoons made by foreign authors and produced by Croatians are winning the international awards...
Personal favorite of your reviewer is "Quest" created by Australian Jurevicius. It's a true rock-n-roll workout of the Slavic tradition, completely unusual and visually unforgettable cartoon where ancient Slavic folklore is centrifuged trough the contemporary media culture. Jurevicius' "Quest" in its media is what would happen if Nick Cave would re-make a Croatian folk song.

Jurica Pavičić
review in 'Jutarnji list'
January 2003
 

Ivana Brlic Mazuranic is still my favorite writer, and "Croatian Tales of Long Ago" is the best thing to have happened during my work on promoting Croatian animation as the commissioner of the Ministry of Culture. This is the best thing that's happened in Croatian cinematography in last ten years!

Joško Marušić,
Ministry of Culture
of the Republic of Croatia
 
 

The best thing to have happened to Croatian cinematography in past 10 years!

Joško Marušić
on Croatian Television, June 2002
 
 

"Croatian Tales" is one of the most complex collaborative project in the growing field of Flash animation ever undertaken. It shows a stunning mix of traditional cartoon animation and the new possibilities of Flash, in the most poetic of ways. Combining a minimalist aesthetic, unique and imaginative art and design, original storytelling and a super cool sense of humor, the project "Croatian Tales" shows us that fairytales are alive and well today, as vital and vibrant as ever in this most modern retelling.

Ulrich Wegenast,
programme curator,
Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film
   
 

Present official version of the project - the CD-ROM with first 4 multimedia adaptations of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić's stories - is simply extraordinary in all its aspects.

Darko Vukorepa,
Feral Tribune, Split
January 2003
 

 
Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Part One) ... can be expected to appeal to adults just as much as children. It is a really exciting piece of hyperliterature: unpretentious, with genuine popular appeal, but not in the least shallow, sentimental or patronising to its audience. It has rightly won a hatful of international awards. If this CD and its companion volume meet with the commercial success they deserve, we can expect to see a lot more work of this type appearing in the next few years. Let's hope it's all up to the same high standard.

Edward Picot,
trAce online, UK
(full text of the review...)
 

Based on Croatian Fairy Tales of Long Ago, this series of storybooks brought to life is beautiful, simple to navigate, and captivating. A must see both to read, and be inspired!

Kids @n the Net, UK