Nancy Denney-Phelps Talks Food, Fine Wine, and Friends ‘On The Animation Trail’

In her house in Ghent, Nancy Denney-Phelps’ passions are clear: food and animation. Nancy is the first to admit their home kitchen is tiny, or “a sailboat’s galley” as she calls it, but they still make room for a hefty ristra of peppers from her son and daughter in-law, a large Mrs. Potts “Beauty and the Beast” teapot, numerous framed pieces of art and, like any European home, bottles of good wine. 

“Our house is full of things from animated films that animators have given us,” says Nancy, animation historian, journalist and blogger for AWN. “Especially puppets and artwork from films.”

In the next room, where Nancy has watched literally thousands of hours of animation, there are “Felix the Cat” plushies, “The Powerpuff Girls” figurines, old take-up reels, and dozens upon dozens of animation cells and pieces of concept art given to her by creatives she’s met over her many years touring the world’s best animation festivals. There’s also a rack of film festival badges from events like Annecy, SIGGRAPH, Anifilm and Zagreb. There are hundreds, and they’re all important.

“It’s 24 years’ worth,” says Nancy of the badges. “I think it’s taking up two coat hangers now. It is amazing and the best part of writing my book was remembering all these times and people. The animation community is a wonderful place to call home.”

Nancy has been a regular correspondent for ASIFA’s San Francisco chapter and a member of the ASIFA International Board of Directors. In addition to AWN, Nancy has written about animation publications such as CARTOON and ANIMATOON. With her composer/musician husband Nik Phelps, Nancy also co-founded the Sprocket Ensemble, dedicated to presenting live performances of original music with screenings of contemporary animation from around the world. She works as an advisor, juror, and committee member to several animation festivals, and after two decades spent globetrotting from one event to the next, Nancy has put 166 pages worth of her adventures into the recently released book: “On the Animation Trail: 20 Years of Animation Festival History.”

Nancy most recently presented her book at ITFS in Stuttgart this past Saturday, May 10, and will offer another presentation at the Annecy Festival this June.

Each page of her book is filled with wanderlust; she takes a marvelous dive into not only the splendor of animation and its festivals, but the magic of those brave enough to create the works of art these special events feature and celebrate. Still, Nancy admits, “It’s nowhere near all my stories.”

Somewhere under the rack of many, many badges in Nancy’s home – including the one from Anibar that says “Grandmother” - is her first ever animation festival badge from the 2001 KROK festival in Ukraine. It was the start of a new world for Nancy and, fittingly, kicks off her book. 

“We were living in San Francisco at that time and people in America really didn’t appreciate animation, especially short animation, unless it was Disney or for kids,” notes Nancy. “But I’ve always loved animation, and I discovered this whole world of incredible filmmaking. It was the kind of stuff I wanted to be watching. And it was definitely not for children. I thought, ‘The world needs to know about this.’”

Having fallen in love with the timeless classics Rocky and Bullwinkle, Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, Nancy jumped at the chance to go to Russia and Ukraine’s KROK International Animated Films Festival when her friend and short film animator Nina Paley couldn’t attend and insisted Nancy go in her stead to represent Paley’s short film Fetch!, for which Nik had composed the music. For those who don’t know the unique event, for years, Krok was a 10-day festival, alternating between Russia and Ukraine, held on a boat sailing down either the Volga or the Dnieper and Black Sea. The ongoing war has changed what was once a peaceful, cultural collaboration between people of Russia and Ukraine.

“Until 2001, we hadn't gone to any industry-oriented events like animation festivals as professionals,” says Nik, an Annie-nominated composer who took a majority of the photos featured in the book. “Of course we'd been to film festivals before as audience members, but didn't participate onsite and at meals and drinks at the same inside level that you get to once you become a recognized member of the animation community. The KROK Festival was the first animation festival that we went to as full participants. And, yes, I felt really at home with these wonderful crazy Eastern bloc people and the younger Westerners who we met.”

He adds, “Of course each festival has its own character, and you do get to learn a lot of things about each of the cities that they're located in. But going to Ukraine and Russia at those times was truly eye opening.” 

There were more than a few times Nancy says she had some challenges getting to KROK, from having her passport confiscated by armed Belarus guards to navigating missed trains, missing visas, Polish smugglers, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

“My other dream was to be a war correspondent,” shares Nancy. “My great idol is Lyse Doucet, BBC's Chief International Correspondent. She was totally fearless and always just went for it. My motto is, ‘If you invite me, I will come.’”

And even in the overcrowded Moscow sleeping coach, Nancy would make friends over food, drinks and art. 

“The man and woman I shared a compartment with spoke no English, but between the shared food, vodka, and wine, we communicated perfectly by drawing pictures to each other on our 20-hour trip,” writes Nancy in her book. 

Nik would also play with the Russian musicians during the festival, which consisted of 200 animators from around the world packed onto a ship. 

“There would be all night jam sessions,” says Nancy.

Nik adds, “They were more like sing-alongs.”

Nancy continues, “They would come together with whatever they had to make music with and then, at a certain point, food, vodka, and wine from port stops we made would just start appearing. The first year, there were very few English speakers on the boat, but at the end of the trip, the director of the festival said, ‘You are KROK family.’ Every year after that, we didn't have to apply or anything. They just sent us an invitation to come. I’m still in contact with many, many people from both Ukraine and Russia. The people at KROK became very dear friends.”

While part of that bonding was the jam sessions, a major part was making friends with visitors while she was in the hospital after almost dying from drinking black tea. At the 2015 festival, she passed out, lost her appetite, and couldn’t get out of bed. KROK’s ship doctor put her on an IV and insisted she be taken to a hospital. Eventually, it was discovered that Nancy’s low blood pressure, weight loss and inability to retain potassium was caused from her drinking black tea. It was a rare reaction and could have been fatal if not for the people at KROK. 

“I mean, who expects to almost die in Russia during an animation festival?” says Nancy. “But the amazing thing is, I’m so glad it happened there because they took such good care of me. I owe them my life.”

It was also KROK friends who Nik and Nancy started staying with in Belgium during their busy Europe festival seasons and, ultimately, were the reason they chose to move there permanently. 

“I have this particular warm spot in my heart for KROK,” notes Nancy. “When you're on a boat with people for 10 days, and you're eating with the same people every day, and you're partying with them, you form a bond that probably doesn't happen at any other festival. At other festivals, you're hanging out with people, you're having fun, but you do go back to your own place at night. At KROK, you wake up and open your door and there are your friends.”

Nancy has become known as “the connector” at many European and Asian animation festivals, hosting picnics and special animation viewings, an always friendly face eager to bring festival newcomers into the fold. 

“Every year at Annecy, Nik and I host a massive picnic, and Kaboom [Kaboom Animation Festival in Amsterdam] ‘recreated’ our picnic inside the EYE National Film Festival Museum, where the festival is held, for a recent presentation of my book,” shares Nancy. “They put down Astroturf in the upstairs bar, provided blankets and picnic food. People ate and drank while listening to Nik and I as we were interviewed. After the hour-long interview, I signed books. We came home with a completely empty book box.”

As they’ve shared in the book and in many interviews, Nancy and Nik have face numerous challenges along the festival trail - from almost getting arrested for showing animation at Annecy with a revoked permit, to Serbian border controls making the return home from Anibar a 19-hour nightmare. But the marks of a good festival, according to the pair, aren’t its ease of access. It’s good animation, good people, good eats, and good drinks. 

“KROK, Stuttgart, Zagreb – one of my favorite festivals – and even Annecy… comparing festivals is like comparing apples and oranges,” says Nancy. “So many of these festivals and its people are family to me. I couldn't say this one is better than that one. The only reason I didn’t write about them all is because I don’t think I could write a 1,000-page book.”

In the book’s forward, Animafest Zagreb Festival Artistic Director Daniel Šuljić describes the wonder and limitless nature of a cartoon. And since 2001, Nancy says her excursions – both in and out of print – have been, in that sense, “cartoonish” in the best way. 

“And I've enjoyed every minute of it,” says Nancy. “I’m still enjoying every minute of it.”

But now, those travels also include the company of Howard and Harvey… her trusty canes. 

Howard sports a duck head while Harvey has the head of a rabbit. Nancy has been using one or the other since 2009 and, like her red hair and big smile, they’ve become part of Nancy’s signature festival look. “Harvey” is named after James Stewart’s 1950 American comedy-drama of the same name and is featured on the cover of Nancy’s book. Howard is named after Marvel’s “Howard the Duck.” 

“Howard is for dressy occasions,” says Nancy. “I figured if I was going to move into Grand Dame hood, I might as well do it in style.”

After years of hosting activities like “softball for dummies” at her Annecy picnics, meeting Wallace and Gromit models at Aardman, discovering the humanity of Polish puppets in Warsaw, and seeing the Italian castles that inspired legends like Hayao Miyazaki, Grand Dame Nancy now spends considerable time coaching at the festivals where she too was once as wide-eyed as the young creatives she now advises. 

“I really enjoy helping young filmmakers,” says Nancy. “Nik and I are pitching coaches at ANIMARKT, and I get so excited when I see one of the films that I coached get made. I also just love hanging out with my animator friends because we are all inveterate partiers. If you spend six or seven years alone working on your film, when you finally get it done and you can get out there, all you want to do is have fun and see people. We have a lot of fun together.”

When Nancy’s not attending film festivals, she’s watching film submissions as a frequent member of selection committees. Though there was a time she admits to being partial to short films, she says she’s been watching a lot of features lately and, true to what Šuljić says in the book’s foreword, Nancy doesn’t have a bad word to say about almost any of them. 

“Adam Elliot and I are very, very old friends and, at Annecy, he gave Nik and I the tickets to his first showing,” shares Nancy. “We sat in the row right in front of him, and he got a 10-minute standing ovation. His film is pretty brutal, but I love gritty stuff. Adam actually told me once that Pinky is an amalgamation of me and his mother.”

“The only thing about a feature is that, if it’s bad, you’ve wasted more of your time,” admits Nancy, who always watches any film all the way through. “And I’m not a big fan of this trend where short films are now stretching to 20 or 25 minutes. Many I’ve seen could have been cut down to 10 minutes and been really good.”

But Nancy is familiar with the pain of “cutting down” a story after having narrowed down thousands of festival photos to just 56 and choosing which festivals to spotlight for her book. Especially when they’re all worthy of the attention.

“I have a limited but devoted readership, so I’m glad I did it, but I don’t think I ever want to write another book,” she admits. “It was so hard to get started on it. Once I started, it just kind of flowed, and I enjoyed that part. But I'm really busy. Last year I didn't go out to my garden at all. I got to the festivals, but when I got home, I immediately had to write.”

But “On the Animation Trail” isn’t just a story of Nancy’s travels and the animators she’s met along the way. It’s also a story of Nik and Nancy, an inseparable dynamic duo.

“Behind every Nancy, there’s a Nik,” shares Nancy. “We both work in the same field, but in totally different branches. So, we're at the same place, at the same time, but we're doing different things and sometimes even seeing it through different eyes. I could never do what I do without him. And for the whole year that I was writing, he took over all the cooking and cleaning and running the house. I couldn’t have written the book without him.”

Which Nancy mentions in the Acknowledgements section of her book, alongside her son Aaron Liebling, cover artist Joanna Quinn, Šuljić, and her editor Will Bateman.

“We recently had a lovely book signing in Brussels,” notes Nancy. “And everybody also wanted Nik’s autograph too.”

Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.