'Cast Away

Quick podcast roundup. In episode 37 Samuel Ortí Martí - AKA Sam - talks to Steve about his Spanish stop-motion horror pastiche Pos Eso, which looks like great fun. Also Katie Steed of Slurpy Studios joins the podcast to give us the lowdown on this year's Dublin Animation Film Festival.

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In episode 38, which just went up today in anticipation of us all being at MAF this week, Laura-Beth joins us to discuss the special Skwigly showcase screenings we've put together and the success of Tinman Creative's Super Science Friends. Guests in this episode are Sheldon Cohen, director of the NFB classic The Sweater discussing his latest film My Heart Attack, as well as Rhiannon Evans who some may know from her short film Heartstrings and recent NFTS grad film Fulfilament.

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Both My Heart Attack and Fulfilament will be part of our MAF showcases, on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. See you there!

Fringe on top

I recently mentioned that Skwigly will have a couple of fringe screenings at next week's Manchester Animation Festival, and I'm pleased to say the full info for both is now confirmed. Curated by myself and Laura-Beth, these events compile an assortment of standout work from the last couple of years, from films that have caught our eye at festivals, Skwigly Showcase submissions, films we've done prior Skwigly coverage on and MAF entries that couldn't be programmed into the main categories for whatever reason. It's been great fun putting these together and many thanks to all the filmmakers, studios and distributors who've all pitched in!
Both screenings will take place in the event space at Manchester's HOME, the main MAF venue, and are free to all (though festival passholders will have priority):

Screening 1: Existential Enticements
Tuesday November 17th, 4pm 

If The Cuckoo Don’t Crow
Dir. Steve Kirby, UK
Runtime: 1:50

If I Was God…
Dir. Cordell Barker, Canada
Runtime: 8:30

The Evening Her Mind Jumped Out of Her Head
Dir. Kim Noce, Shaun Clarke, UK
Runtime: 8:00

The Urban Fox
Dir. Joanna Hepworth, UK
Runtime: 1:45

Chronemics
Dir. Animade, UK
Runtime: 6:17

An Ode To Love
Dir. Matthew Darragh, Ireland
Runtime: 7:33

The Meek
Dir. Joe Brumm, Australia
Runtime: 7:26

Mr. Director
Dir. Andy Martin, UK
Runtime: 6:50

Klementhro
Dir. Sue Dunham, UK/Canada
Runtime: 3:50

Clockwork Jerk: Tea
Dir. Oli Putland, UK
Runtime: 1:28

Wackatdooo
Dir. Benjamin Arcand, Canada
Runtime: 5:40

My Heart Attack
Dir. Sheldon Cohen, Canada
Runtime: 13:43

Hart’s Desire
Dir. Gavin C. Robinson, Scotland
Runtime: 6:23

Screening 2: Fetching Fascinations
Wednesday November 18th, 3:30pm 

Carface
Dir. Claude Cloutier, Canada
Runtime: 4:45

Light
Dir. Stephen Ong, UK
Runtime: 1:43

Cooped
Dir. Mike A. Smith, USA
Runtime: 9:03

Flush
Dir. Ben Prudden, UK
Runtime: 1:30

Fulfilament
Dir. Rhiannon Evans, UK
Runtime: 7:37

HeCTA: The Concept
Dir. Chris Shepherd, UK
Runtime: 3:37

Loop Ring Chop Drink
Dir. Nicolas Ménard, UK
Runtime: 10:30

M.E.R.K.U.R.
Dir. Jean-Baptiste Aziere, Delphine Delannoy, Simon Goeneutte-Lefevre, Edwin Leeds, Camille Roubinowitz, France
Runtime: 2:25

Deadly
Dir. Aidan McAteer, Ireland
Runtime: 8:45

‘Shop Genie
Dir. John Lily, UK
Runtime: 1:14

Lucy and The Limbs
Dir. Edlyn Capulong, USA
Runtime: 2:49

Sausage
Dir. Robert Grieves, UK
Runtime: 6:15

The Kik: Cupido
Dir. Natali Voorthuis, Netherlands
Runtime: 2:54

Omulan!
Dir. Matei Branea, Romania
Runtime: 14:48

For more info on the MAF festival and its other excellent events including the not-to-be-missed Joanna Quinn life-drawing class, Tomm Moore masterclass, and the always fun Skwigly Animation Quiz (that I'll be co-presenting with quizmaster Steve) check out their official site. Hope to see you there!

KLIK! Bait

Since returning from KLIK! and its brief respite from what has to be classified as one of the most stressful and busy periods of my professional life (I love it, but I love to complain too) I've managed to piece together a brand new series of Skwigly podcast minisodes, something we haven't done in a while. The first three episodes feature excerpts from the festival's Filmmaker Talkshow sessions hosted by animation buff Hans Walther.

Unfortunately due to an audio glitch with the recordings provided not all of the interview sessions could be included but there's a lot of great insight from attending filmmakers Natali Voorthuis, Roman Klochkov, Stephanie Blakey, Laura d'Addazio, Alexandre Mailleux, Frederic Siegel, Veronica Montaño, Manuela Leuensberger, Lukas Suter, Sacha Feiner, Marilyn Haddad, Monique Almelle Renault, Susanna Szabo, Eugenia Pashkina, Liz el Saadany, Fela Bellotto, Lalita Brunna and Marieke Blaauw of Job, Joris and Marieke.
In episode four I meet the remaining two-thirds of said studio, Job Roggeveen and Joris Oprins, discussing their body of work that includes the fantastic Mute, the Oscar-nominated A Single Life and their most recent short (Otto). Also in the final episode I meet festival director Yvonne van Ulden, catch up with the brilliant PES about what he's been up to since last year's podcast appearance and speak with Cartoon Saloon's Tomm Moore about his involvement in the multi-artist animated feature The Prophet. You can listen to all four episodes via our Skwigly at KLIK! playlist below:
On top of the podcasts you can also read my report on the festival as a whole (as well as some personal highlights from the official selection) over on Film Hub NWC, the fantastic organisation behind This Is Not A Cartoon and who provided a bursary that helped make the trip over to KLIK! possible.
Special thanks to Tünde Vollenbroek, Samuele Mini, Jen Hall and Alison Kennedy. Here's hoping I'll be back over there next year!

November Reign

I'm in the last month of the oft-cryptically-alluded-to Project Group-Hug, something that has turned out to be a mammoth endeavour that I'm looking forward to revealing properly soon. Needless to say it's taking up more or less every waking hour of my life in this final stretch, so expect blog posts to be few and short for the next little while.

However I do have some updated screening news for my new film, with some time and date specifics. At Portugal's Área de Contenção it will be screened on November 7th at 11am as part of the festival's Monstro Debaixo da Cama program.

As previously mentioned it will screen at Interfilm Berlin's 31st International Short Film Festival at 11pm November 13th in the section Eject XVIII: The Long Night of Weird Shorts alongside some other great films such as Steve Kirby's If the Cuckoo Don't Crow, Rory Waudby-Tolley's Tusk, Andreas Hykade's Myself Universe and Two Films About Loneliness by William Bishop-Stephens. Ich bin ein Berlin-type-guy!

Also in Germany it will be shown as part of the Flensburg Short Film Festival's International Animation screening at 7:45pm on November 21st, again amongst some fine work such as Leonid Shmelkov's Very Lonely Cock.

Those who may find themselves at the Manchester Animation Festival later this month may wish to swing by our Skwigly Showcase screenings myself and Laura-Beth have curated that will take place on Tuesday 17th at 4pm and Wednesday 18th at 3:30pm. There's a good chance that said new film will have been sneakily snuck in to the Tuesday screening. I should have more info and specifics on these shortly, so check back!
Righto, back to group-huggin'...