Friday 8 May 2020

Stormy May Days

It's sort of reassuring that, even when the world is at an unprecedented standstill, if I wait long enough between blog posts I can maintain the illusion that it's all-go.
If you didn't manage to catch the BBC4 programme Get Animated! featuring Laura-Beth's new film The Gift - or if you want to see it again - it will be available on the BBC iPlayer for nearly a year from now, which is grand news. I hadn't realised earlier but the channel also had a repeat showing of Secrets of British Animation, a documentary in which my beardy face occasionally makes an appearance to talk about dirty cartoons, so that's also back on iPlayer but just for the next few weeks. There's some fun stuff in there so definitely give it a look if you didn't catch it the first time around.
https://www.festanca.sk/2020/en/presenting-the-fest-anca-2020-official-selection/
Some really nice news in that Slovakia's Fest Anča International Animation Festival, one of the events who screened my very first film back in the day, have announced that my new film Speed is among the official selection for their 2020 edition. It's scheduled to take place from August 27th-30th so it's hard to say whether or not it'll go ahead as planned or make the switch to digital, but in intent my film will be part of the Extremely Short Section of Extremely Short Films. Will keep you posted with any updates that come between then and now.

Speaking of switching to digital, another event that has recently kicked off is Lift-Off Global Network's Genre Content Extravaganza, which includes both Speed and my preceding film Sunscapades in their Page 2 section. The programme can be rented and voted on through May 14th - with over 100 films to check out you get a lot of bang for your buck and, to be honest, it's not like you've got anywhere to be right now - so grab some popcorn and check it out. I'd originally submitted my work to this one as selected filmmakers get to visit Pinewood Studios and I was hoping I'd get to swing by the Channard Institute, so it's a bit of a shame that's not happening - but waddayagonnado? Nice of them to include the work either way.

If you need some audio goodness to accompany your extended weekend then - huzzah - we've got some podcasts for ya. The latest episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast welcomes back previous guest Kris Pearn to learn about his new Netflix film The Willoughbys and our Skwigly Film Club series continues with watch-throughs of animation classics The Land Before Time (Don Bluth) and The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet). Keep following us on Facebook, Twitter et al to get involved and help us decide which films we watch in future. We've also recently expanded our distribution platforms a touch so, depending on which floats your boat most buoyantly, be sure to follow us via Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or Acast and never miss an episode!