My pals at the
Manchester Animation Festival have kicked off a new series of year-round social/screening events
MAF Presents, which began earlier this month with their first programme
They Love Me, They Love Me Not that kindly featured my latest film
Speed. If you're up North be sure to keep your eyes on their
site and
socials for updates on upcoming events as I'm sure you're itching to get back into the swing of that whole human contact thang.
On a similar note, the wonderful
Cardiff Animation Nights gang have resumed their in-person events as well as carrying on the online screenings they started during the pandemic, so be sure to
follow what they're up to as well. Even more exciting is the return of the
Cardiff Animation Festival, whose third edition will take place at their usual Chapter Arts venue April 7th-10th, knock wood, with an online version going through to the 24th. There'll be more specific programme info to come but in the meantime I can confirm I'll be there to host the filmmaker Q&As and
Laura-Beth Cowley's recent project
Crafty Witch is among the festival's official selection as part of the
Shorts 7: After Dark category. Pop it in your schedules!
Also on the events front, the biennial
British Animation Awards - on which I mucked in as preselector/jury - will be happening on March 10th at the BFI Southbank with signal events in Bristol, Cardiff, Salford and Stirling if a Thursday night trek to London isn't doable but you still want to check out the festivities. All being well I'll be at the main event so hopefully will see some of y'all in the big smoke; I won't hug you but we can affectionately exchange finger-guns. Otherwise be sure to check out
their site for the various viewing and ticket options they have.
Before any of that will be
Speed's inclusion as part of
Anima Brussels next weekend. Since the
announcement of the official selection I now know it will be part of the second
Animated Nights block on Saturday, March 5th, kicking off at 10pm in
Flagey Studio 4 and 10:30pm at
Palace. I'm properly gutted that I won't be able to make it in person as seeing
Sunscapades as part of the same programme a
couple years ago was an absolute blast, but right now the faff of getting in and out of Belgium would just be too disruptive to make it feasible. Fingers crossed I'll make it back over there before too long.
Following on from
last month's UK streaming release of
Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, it will be traveling further afield as of March 1st with its arrival on streaming platforms in the US, Canada and Australia. It's a job I have a lot of fond associations with and it's really nice that all the hard work the crew put into it will get some wider visibility. Check out what viewing options are available to you
here.
Over on Skwigly I've delved a bit further into the production of the incredible Netflix film The House (the directors of which I interviewed last month) via an interview with Nexus Studios producer/co-founder Charlotte Bavasso. As well as discussing the film itself we also go into the early days of the studio and what the future may hold - it was a real treat to chat with her and I hope you find her insights as inspirational as I did.
Having been out of print for a little while I'm pleased to see that We Still Care A Lot, the tribute album I contributed to in honour of the late Chuck Mosley, has finally gotten itself a digital release. You can check out the full album over on Bandcamp.
Not a whole bunch else I can explicitly talk about but if you happen to be one of those trendy youngsters who lurk about on TikTok you might want to go ahead and follow this little IP that's on the grow. The keen of ear may even detect a familiar vocal performance in the video below:
Finally, these pipes have gone viral.
