Little November round-up for y'all

I've recently finished jury duties (Animated Series and Animated Films for Children) at Russia's Big Cartoon Festival. This is an event that gave Klementhro a lot of love over the years and it's been great to be involved in a new capacity alongside Irene Sparr and Alexey Alekseev. Main awards for Animated Series went to the exceptional Bluey (Under-12s) and Elliott From Earth (Over-12s) with special mentions to Kiri & Lou and The Story of a Word respectively. Best Animated Film went to Guillaume Lorin's wonderful Vanille with a special mention for Louis' Shoes by Théo Jamin, Kayu Leung, Marion Philippe and Jean-Géraud Blanc.

Elsewhere in the Big Cartoon Festival programme is Laura-Beth's BBC Arts short film The Gift, which is in the special midnight ТОЛЬКО ДЛЯ ЖЕНЩИН (Women Only) programme which will play online November 6th, 7th and 8th.

The Gift will also be getting itself a screening at the Ax Wound Film Festival, an event focused on horror written/directed by women and non-binary filmmakers (also winner of best festival name since the invention of festivals). This will be an online event going from December 10th-19th, will pop up updates and specifics if I get 'em but in the meantime keep an eye on their socials. I'm pretty confident it'll be a fun one.

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Lastly, Speed will be shown as part of Cardiff Animation Festival's series of in-person screenings of their online 2020 program they've been rolling out since things opened up a bit. If you can make it to the Chapter Arts Centre at 4:30pm on November 21st be sure to check out Shorts 3: Heart to see the film alongside some other great work.

Speaking o' work, I have a metric s**t-ton of it to get through so I'd best wrap this up. Stay warm, folks.

Summer plans (in lieu of, y'know, actual summer plans)

In the latest episode of the third season of our podcast series Intimate Animation we meet Prague-based directorial duo Michaela Mihályi and David Štumpf, whose recent short film SH_T HAPPENS has been screening to much enthusiasm and acclaim around the world at events including Sundance, Clermont Ferrand, LIAF and Anima Brussels. 

We also discuss Laura-Beth’s recent experience making The Gift for Calling The Shots, the unexpected revival of Tuca and Bertie, the recent YouTube virality of previous podcast guest Dario Van Vree’s Tabook, the long-overdue progressiveness of Pixar’s Out plus love’n’sex-themed short film highlights from the recent online edition of ITFS Stuttgart. Give 'er a stream or download forevs.

Some upcoming festival news (of the shackled, lockdown variety) is that Speed will return to Japan as part of the Official Selection of this year's edition of the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. I've had these folks on my radar since I first started making films so it's wonderful to be part of the line-up. Of course it won't be going ahead in the traditional sense but it's an honour all the same. You can swing by their website for an outline of the revised format and the deliberations will be taking place from August 20th-24th. 

In the more immediate future the film will also be part of FilmOneFest, an event focusing on micro-shorts that will be kicking off June 23rd with free screenings via Facebook live that will span the following month. Once things have returned to normalcy there is a public screening planned which I'll follow up on once I know the details.

Another event to make the switch to an online edition is Russia's Big Cartoon Festival, who will include my 2015 film Klementhro among its line-up for what I gather is something of a digital retrospective edition (the film participated in its 2017 edition and several associated events the following year). The event will run from July 3rd-12th with my film part of their What A Day! screening that plays on the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 12th and you can swing by their website for more specifics in the lead-up. These screenings will also be free from what I can tell, so go ahead'n'treat yourselves.

There's just no sinking the bugger

Yet more adventures for our pal Klementhro coming up this month and next. Firstly there's the Big Cartoon Weekend in Saint Petersburg, another offshoot of Russia's Big Cartoon Festival as its name suggests. Klementhro will play in the third programme 'Borrowed Time' that kicks off 7pm on Sunday July 29th at the Rodina Cinema, rubbing shoulders with some fantastic other films such as The Burden, Catherine and Mr. Madila.

Following that will be an early August screening at Ukraine's Lviv International Short Film Festival Wiz-Art in association with the London Short Film Festival at which the film originally screened back in January of last year. I'm humbled to say it will be screening in a special retrospective of the best British shorts of the past three years to screen at LSFF. The even takes place on August 10th at 4pm and you can watch the programme for updates here.

All-nighter

Another exciting screening for Klementhro this coming Friday - it will be part of Big Animation Night, a massive five-hour event bringing together a bunch of the films that were gathered up by the folks from Russia's Big Cartoon Festival. As with other events spun off from this particular fest, this means my weird little film will have elbowed its way in amongst some of my absolute favourites of the last couple years, including Love, Negative Space, The Burden, Catherine, Wednesday With Goddard, Nighthawk, Ivan's Need, The Head Vanishes and Mr. Madila.
The event will take place at the in Moscow this Friday night at 10pm (which means Klementhro will show up around the 2:55am mark on Saturday - crikey, watching it on its own is enough of an endurance test) - for full programme info and tickets head over to the Karo cinema website.

Russian About

No Sunscapades news to report, but our paddle-dependent lad Klementhro is still making desperate, needy bids for attention before he gets shunted aside. Over the next few weeks the film will be part of a touring programme spun off from last year's edition of Russia's Big Cartoon Festival for which it was officially selected. Traveling outside of Moscow this time, Klementhro - or Климентро, or Climentro, as I guess the word I made up translates to - will screen alongside a couple of personal favourites such as Love (Réka Bucsi) and Negative Space (Tiny Inventions) this Saturday, March 3rd, 8:40pm at the Spartak cinema in Voronezh.
Later in the month the programme will take place in Krasnoyarsk at the House of Cinema on March 23rd, 9pm and Nizhny Novgorod at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts on March 30th, 4pm. Head on over to the festival's official site and Facebook page for more specific event info. Other screenings that will be featured in the tour also include tremendous recent work by Niki Lindroth Von Bahr (The Burden), Britt Raes (Catherine), Nicolas Ménard (Wednesday With Goddard), Sean Buckelew (Lovestreams), Chintis Lundgren (Life with Herman H. Rott), Diane Obomsawin (I Like Girls), Anna Ginsburg (Material World),  as well as some modern classics from Kirsten Lepore (Bottle) and Tim Reckart (Head Over Heels). So if you're in the area be sure to check it out, 'cause if you miss out on a line-up like that then, frankly, you don't deserve nice things.
Not to be aggressive about it.

In Russia, raft paddles YOU

Following last month's Russian tour it seems the nation can't get enough of our paddlin' pal Klementhro. This month and November will see it play in Moscow for the Big Cartoon Festival, a big festival of cartoons I would assume, or very possibly an average-sized festival of big cartoons. Probably the former as my cartoon is not especially big. The screenings will kick off on my birthday (which also just happens to be International Animation Day - coincidence? Well, yes). Full info as follows:

• October 28th - Karo 8 Atrium, 8pm
• October 30th - Moscow Cinema Fakel, 7pm
• November 4th - Karo 11 Oktyabr, 10pm
• November 5th - Documentary Film Center, 7pm
• November 5th - Karo 11 Oktyabr, 8:30pm

The film will also screen as part of a mini-tour through Saint-Petersburg, Kazan and Ekaterinburg after the festival but I don't have all the specifics for those screenings just yet. So hang tight, comrades.