Autumnal outings

Some events comin' up for ya. The Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival's I'M FINE! programme put together in collaboration with Skwigly is getting itself another screening in Lviv this Friday, November 24th. This one will be happening 6:30pm at America House and is completely free. You can register for it here.

On that subject, the fourth I'M FINE! podcast minisode from our filmmaker Q&A sessions is online now (stream/download), featuring insights from Konrad Hjemli, Jakob Eiring (Pandiculation) and Anna Samo (Conversations With A Whale).

Another event coming up that I, in all honesty, had just about nothing to do with is the premiere of Ainslie Henderson's Shackle, which will get its first public outing at London International Animation Festival on Nov 25th. Laura-Beth played a significant part in developing the eye mechanisms of the puppets and, frankly, I'm a pretty big Ainslie fan so I felt like giving it a shout-out. Also screening will be the feature-length mixed-media documentary A Cat Called Dom by longtime collaborator and Shackle producer Will Anderson, as well as Will's short film Betty. It starts 6:10pm at The Barbican and all told it looks to be a great way to kick off the festival, so check it out if you're in the city.

Speaking of Laura-Beth, which we sort of were, there's another chance to catch her recent short film Crafty Witch (on which I slapped some post-FX and noises) as part of the Cardiff Animation Festival touring programme of 2022 award winners. If you're in or about Milford Haven on the 30th swing on by the Torch Theatre for 8pm (more info here).

A little earlier than that, on the 25th Crafty Witch (or Ravasz Boszorkány) will get a Hungarian screening at the Anilogue International Animation Festival in Budapest. It will be part of the micro-shorts screening Ultrarövid Animációk that takes place 8pm at Toldi Art Mozi. Grab your passes here.

Setbacks and Advances

Following up on the last post, over in Montreal it looks like cinemas will be closed until January 11th at the earliest, so next week's Sommets du Cinéma d'Animation will be going all-digital and postponing any physical screenings until the spring, however the online events won't extend to the short films screenings so I guess they're in limbo for now. Ah well, spreads things out a bit at least. Fingers crossed it won't be too long into the new year when things ease up, in the interim however there has been some talk about my specific section getting some kind of parallel online exhibition so if that's still going ahead I'll post an update.

There's a similar situation playing out in Hungary, where the Anilogue International Animation Festival is kicking off today in online form. Having included Klementhro in their 14th edition they've had the good manners to throw in Speed for their 18th, although the programme specifics have been shrouded in mystery until today. Needless to say the Extremely Short Animated Films section that my film is part of won't actually be taking place until their rescheduled physical edition in May, so watch this space for info on when that comes together.

An outing for Speed that will actually be going ahead as planned (unless I've just jinxed it) is its inclusion in the comedy shorts film festival Short Com from November 30th! The event will be held virtually until December 6th via XerbTV with Speed part of the official selection. This one's geolocked to the UK but there's a tentative plan for some international screenings down the line. Worth mentioning that profits from these events will be donated to The Refugee Council, if you fancy checking them out tickets are available here.

One last update for now is that the Official Selection for the 2020 Palm Springs International Animation Festival & Expo is now online with Speed part of the Animated Comedy Shorts section. This one will be running from December 22nd through to January 2nd and will take the form of an online edition as well as a series of drive-in screenings, which is a nifty solution. Don't know much else about it just yet but keep your eyes on their Facebook for updates as they come.

One more for November

Quick update on my previous post about Klementhro's upcoming screening as part of Hungary's 14th Anilogue International Animation Festival in Budapest - the film will be part of the Programme B which screens 3:30pm this Wednesday (November 23rd) at the Puskin Cinema and the 5pm following day at the Urania National Film Theatre. I'm very humbled to see it's screening alongside some of my favourites of the past year, including films by recent interviewees Dávid Dell'Edera (Balcony), Terri Matthews (The Wrong End of the Stick), Anete Melece (Analysis Paralysis) and Réka Bucsi (Love), the latter two films I was privileged enough to screen myself at MAF last week.
While things do seem to be winding down a bit for our lonely lad Klementhro, there are a couple more confirmed outings on the horizon after this one. Watch this proverbial space, my friends.

Lucky 14

Klementhro's adventures continue with two more upcoming festivals I can cheerily reveal. Following last month's Hungarian screening at Busho, in roughly another month's time the film will return to Budapest as part of the 14th Anilogue International Animated Film Festival's competition programme. The programme specifics have not yet been announced but the festival runs from November 23rd to the 27th with event highlights including screenings of Michaël Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle and Claude Barras's My Life as a Courgette.

The first (possibly only) screening of 2017 will be a little closer to home, as part of the 14th London Short Film Festival. Out of the 80+ public outings our ginger rafting enthusiast has seen, UK festival screenings have been something of a rarity, so it's very nice that, whether or not this proves to be the end of his journey, Klementhro will eventually wash back up on British soil. Small victories and such. No programme specifics for this festival either right now, but I'll be sure to keep you all up to speed on both fronts.