Sita Sings the Blues -free animated film up to 1080p

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http://sitasingstheblues.com/

The work of a single animator, Nina Paley. The story of her hellish year-long fight to release her film against the minions of copyright has been ongoing news in the animation world. This fight ultimately prevented her from capitalizing on her own film -- thus, she is making it freely available to anyone and everyone.

The film has received much credit, many citing it as among the best animated films produced in recent years (it also gained a hefty spotlight once media front-runner Ebert finally championed it at his film festival).

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Certainly worth the buzz it's received over its development, too. It's a well articulated story that flows so, so, so well and is very clever to boot -- and not in the way that says "Look at my cleverness," but rather "There's a novel, melodious way of telling this story and I sincerely hope you enjoy it." Well worth anyone's time to check it out.

From the onset the film was built around the songs of 1920's jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw. In some ways it's a tribute to the somewhat forgotten singer, but the Hanshaw compositions were all still under copyright and the corporate entities involved lawfully demanded the proper licensing/royalties/etc. associated with the music's use in a commercial work. Paley wasn't operating at even a fraction of the budget of a studio release and only barely assembled donor funds to purchase 35mm stock. Ultimately, she had to abandon any kind of commercial/theatrical release, taking the creative commons bypass and distributing the film directly and freely, running purely on donations and any profit from merchandise surrounding her designs (which according to Paley is working quite well for her now).

The film would've made a much bigger splash if the original plan had worked out, but as it stands it is perhaps involved in a much more interesting experiment in free public distribution as a viable economic model (you know, a Nine Inch Nails/Radiohead kind of thing, only without the previous marketability and stature those two parties hold).

Jam it back in, in the dark.