FRANKENWEENIE

American director Timothy William Burton was born in California in 1958. From childhood he developed a passion for drawing and Gothic films, and studied at the California Institute of the Arts before joining the Disney studios animation team. His own work, highly original even then, was very different from the style of cartoons made by Disney, but the studio recognized his talent and helped with the production of his first short films: 'Vincent' (1982), 'Hansel and Gretel' (1982) and 'Frankenweenie' (1984). His first feature film, 'Pee-Wee's Big Adventure' (1985), was a success but it was 'Beetlejuice' (1988) that threw the doors of Hollywood wide open. Warner hired him for the first 'Batman' (1989), which enabled him to move on to more personal projects, imposing his style with 'Edward Scissorhands' (1990) which he directed, and 'Nightmare before Christmas' (1993), which he produced. Their worldwide critical acclaim established his reputation as a visionary craftsman. The fourteen feature films which made up his works reinvent every genre, from biography ('Ed Wood', which got him selected for the Competition at Cannes in 1995), to science fiction ('Mars Attacks', in 1997, or 'Planet of the Apes', in 2001), via gothic ('Sleepy Hollow', 1999), fantasy ('Big Fish', 2003), animation ('The Corpse Bride', 2005), tales for children ('Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', 2005) as well as a musical, 'Sweeney Todd', in 2007. Famous for being a filmmaker, Tim is also an illustrator, a painter and a photographer. In 1998, he published a collection of illustrated poems, 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories'. New York's MoMA celebrated him as an artist with a major exhibition of his work in 2010.