Following the IMDb News Brief posted below, the Los Angeles Times‘ full speculative article about the politics behind the Roy Disney-produced short Destino is quite an interesting read. “Many veteran animators who have long seen Roy Disney as a champion of their art form have a wish: they want Walt’s nephew to win the statuette on February 29 and deliver a nationally televised slap at Eisner and his company, which has laid off hundreds of animators in recent years. Roy Disney’s defense of old-school animation has made him a hero of sorts among those who put pen to paper. Included in that group are academy members entitled to vote in the category of animated short film. Tom Sito, president emeritus of the animation guild, said that he voted for Destino and that many of his colleagues were rooting for the film. ‘Roy has become a sort of prism of anger because he’s the only person powerful enough to stand up to Michael and not be afraid,’ Sito said. ‘I think it’s the emotional favorite because of Roy’. Of the 5,803 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 307 can vote for the short and feature animation entries. Ballots must be returned by February 24, five days before the Oscar telecast on Disney-owned ABC.”

We have the whole story here:

Short Film Has Tall Implications

Many animators hope to see Walt Disney’s nephew win an Oscar for ‘Destino’ and air a
denunciation of company chief Michael Eisner.

By Richard Verrier and Claudia Eller, Times Staff Writers

As Hollywood’s most celebrated night draws near, a small Oscar-nominated animated film is assuming big symbolism in the feud between Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner and former board member Roy E. Disney.

The seven-minute-long Destino, a collaboration between painter Salvador Dali and company founder Walt Disney, languished for decades until Roy Disney made its completion a top priority. He brought in animators to create new scenes while keeping Eisner in the dark for more than a year — partly, he said, because he didn’t want any interference.

Now, with the Academy Awards only days away, many veteran animators who have long seen Roy Disney as a champion of their art form have a wish: They want Walt’s nephew to win the statuette on Feb. 29 and deliver a nationally televised slap at Eisner and his company, which has laid off hundreds of animators in recent years.

“I think people are relishing the potential sight of Roy getting up and giving the acceptance speech at the Oscars,” said Kevin Koch, president of Hollywood’s local animation guild and a staff animator at DreamWorks SKG. “The irony of the situation is not lost on most people.”

For his part, Roy Disney joked during an interview Wednesday that he had penned 487 Oscar acceptance speeches of which “only about three are printable.” Asked if he would use the occasion to advance his campaign to oust Eisner, Disney said: “I honestly think it will be implicit. I will leave it up to my own mouth.”

Since his resignation from the board in November, Roy Disney, 74, has been talking a lot about Eisner. He has accused the chief executive of damaging the company’s legendary image through a series of bad management moves.

Eisner, who is also facing a challenge to his management in the form of an unsolicited takeover bid from Comcast Corp., was unavailable for comment Wednesday. But the board, which has rejected Comcast’s offer, has defended his stewardship.

Among many other things, Roy Disney has criticized the company for laying off animators in Burbank, Florida and Paris, a move applauded by financial analysts as necessary given spiraling costs and audience preference for computer-generated animation.

Roy Disney’s defense of old-school animation has made him a hero of sorts among those who put pen to paper. Included in that group are academy members entitled to vote in the category of animated short film.

Tom Sito, president emeritus of the animation guild, said that he voted for Destino and that many of his colleagues were rooting for the film.

“Roy has become a sort of prism of anger because he’s the only person powerful enough to stand up to Michael and not be afraid,” Sito said. “I think it’s the emotional favorite because of Roy.”

Destino faces tough competition, particularly from Pixar Animation Studios’ Boundin’, which recently won a top animation industry award.

Of the 5,803 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 307 can vote for the short and feature animation entries. Ballots must be returned by Feb. 24, five days before the Oscar telecast on Disney-owned ABC.

Destino is based on a ballad written by Armando Dominguez — “just a simple story of a girl in search of her real love,” as Walt Disney once described it.

The movie, which has no dialogue and is set to music, features such Dali surrealism as melting clocks, a character covered in eyeballs and ants crawling out of a hand, transforming into Frenchmen riding bicycles.

Dali and Disney began the project nearly 60 years ago after they were introduced at mogul Jack Warner’s house. Dali was in Hollywood designing sets for the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Spellbound.

Working with Disney artist John Hench, who died this month, Dali spent eight months on the film from late 1945 to 1946. The project was put on hiatus by Walt Disney because the company was having financial problems after World War II.

It seemed the destiny of Destino was sealed until 1999, when Roy Disney was making the animated feature Fantasia 2000. As he rummaged through the studio’s animation research library in Glendale, Disney discovered about 230 pieces of art created by Dali and Hench.

At that moment, he realized some of the story sketches and paintings could be used to complete Destino.

“It was like a big jigsaw puzzle,” Roy Disney said. “All the pieces fell into place.”

There was an added bonus: One of the company’s lawyers told Disney that the entertainment giant could take legal ownership of the Dali artwork stored at the studio after the film’s completion. Roy Disney estimates the collection is worth as much as $10 million.

During the production process, Destino was kept “under the radar” by Roy Disney.

“Eisner was not aware of it,” he said. “There didn’t seem to be a compelling reason for him to know about it. It was one of those projects best done quietly without any help…. The fewer hands, the better.”

To keep it under wraps, Disney tapped a young French director named Dominique Monfery and other artists in Disney’s Paris studio to work on what he considered a “spare-time project.”

Roy Disney said that when Eisner learned of the project after its completion in 2003, “he was upset and didn’t quite comprehend why it was so secret for so long.”

When the company chairman questioned its cost, Disney said the budget was $1.5 million. He went on to explain that the film more than paid for itself because of the highly valuable Dali paintings the studio would inherit.

To generate buzz for the movie, Roy Disney and producer Baker Bloodworth entered the work in a number of film festivals, with its world premiere in France last spring. Destino has won half a dozen awards, including the grand prize for best short film in Melbourne, Australia, and a special citation by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

Roy Disney was so proud of the film that he invited his old-time animation pals Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas to join him for a screening of Destino at Pixar’s Northern California headquarters. He was anxious to show the film to his friend and ex-Disney animator, John Lasseter, the brains behind such Pixar hits as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

At the time, Walt Disney Co. was in tense negotiations with Pixar to extend their remarkably successful partnership, an effort later halted by the animation firm’s chief, Steve Jobs.

A day before the screening, Disney said, Eisner e-mailed him. “He said, ‘I don’t want Disney and Pixar executives mingling during these sensitive negotiations,’ ” Disney said.

Disney agreed not to go, but was embarrassed to have to call off the trip. “I had to tell Frank and Ollie and call John and say we can’t do it.”

Still, in the corporate headquarters at Burbank, many studio executives are hoping Destino can pull off an Oscar win.

“This is a project that Walt regretted not having completed during his lifetime, and it was wonderful that Roy was able to complete it,” said animation chief David Stainton.

If he’s lucky enough to win on Oscar night, Disney already knows what he’s going to say.

“I’ll say, ‘Viva animation!’ “