Proper Northern

The latest official selection announcement for Speed is the top-notch Sommets du Cinéma d'Animation over in Montreal, which takes place December 1st through to the 6th. Obviously it burns my ass to not be able to attend in person, especially given it's where a lot of my favourite people in the world live, but I was privileged to be a guest of the festival in a Skwigly capacity back in 2013 and had an absolute blast so it's wonderful to finally be involved as a filmmaker under any circumstances.
Speed plays in the International Competition of Very Short Films on December 5th at 5pm among a stellar lineup. Check out their website and socials for full schedule and ticket info as it comes. Merci, mes amis!

In the meantime, this year's Manchester Animation Festival has officially kicked off and you'd be, if you'll pardon my language, a darn ninny if you missed out on it. Some personal recommendations include the Short Films Panorama including Laura-Beth Cowley's film The Gift, the MAFter Dark live watch-party featuring Speed, Marie-Ève Lacelle's ToonBoom Harmony masterclass plus a chance to catch the new Cartoon Saloon film Wolfwalkers as well as a Snowden-Fine retrospective and Q&A. Also this year's Skwigly Quiz is looking to be a fun one - alas it's sold out at this point but for those of you who managed to nab a ticket in time we've cooked up some fun stuff for our first online version so hopefully you'll get a kick out of it. There are still plenty of other events available so be sure to check out their full schedule and lineup here.

“To beginnings…and endings. And the wisdom to know the difference.”

Something of a Skwigly milestone this week with the release of our landmark 100th episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast.

Fittingly enough it's a guest roster of heavy-hitters as we welcome back Tomm Moore and meet Ross Stewart of Cartoon Saloon, directors of the stunning new feature film Wolfwalkers that is released in cinemas from October 26th and will be available on Apple TV+ from December 11th. I was lucky enough to get snuck in to a screening of this one at the BFI London Film Festival a couple weeks back and it's absolutely gorgeous, so be sure to give it some love.

We also welcome back previous podcast guest and Oscar-winner Glen Keane to discuss his new CG feature Over the Moon, released today on Netflix, as well as Vanessa Harryhausen, daughter of the legendary Ray Harryhausen and author of the new book Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema that  accompanies the exhibition of the same name.

Also discussed in this episode: The evolution of digital film festivals from our various perspectives as programmers, attendees and filmmakers, upcoming highlights from Manchester Animation Festival and Cardiff Animation Festival, the arbitrary furore of Disney’s updated content warnings and the site-breaking popularity of Vivziepop – plus we read out messages from the Skwigly audience, having desperately solicited approval.

Direct download here or stream the episode below:

Animation Podcasts | Skwigly · Skwigly Podcast 100 (23/10/2020) - Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Glen Keane and Vanessa Harryhausen

Producing and hosting this series alongside our various other podcast strands (if you add them all up the full tally is 190 episodes) has been an enormously gratifying ongoing project over the years, one that has not only granted me time with some of my biggest personal inspirations but also forged strong relationships with some of the animation industry's most important organisations and events. 

Aaaaaand migraine.

In an ideal world it would go on forever but the inconvenient reality is that the kind of free time I had available back when it started over eight years ago just isn't there anymore, and as it's never been a source of direct income it will have to proceed sporadically, if at all. In truth that's already been the case this past year and nobody's complained, and I have no desire to hang it up outright so I'm just going to roll with the punches. Tentative plan is to have it be a seasonal thing but you never know what circumstances will dictate, especially these days. In the meantime if you have a few pennies you'd be happy to throw our way you can support the site here. But if you don't we still like ya anyways.

Marching On

Just one festival lined up for Sunscapades this month. Them lovely Grecians at the Athens Animfest have included it in their 2019 official selection, along with 350 other films. Guess they ain't too picky but hey, glad to be on board. I go back quite a ways with this festival; they were one of the few events to feature my second film Ground Running a decade ago and also showed The Naughty List in 2011.
So I'm grateful for another inclusion and festivalgoers can catch the film in Shorts 6 on Saturday March 16th 8pm at the Oikia Theotokopoulou - for free, no less!

In our most recent Skwigly Animation Podcast we meet Louise Bagnall and Nuria González Blanco, director and producer respectively of the Oscar-nominated Cartoon Saloon short film Late Afternoon. Also discussed in this episode – the legacy of Cartoon Saloon as a whole, the end of the NFTS’s BAFTA streak and the one-two punch of new Disney trailers for the Aladdin remake and Frozen 2. Download for keepsies or stream it thiswise:

The 'Cast Continues

For episode 76 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast I was thrilled to speak with Cartoon Saloon co-founder Nora Twomey, director of the animated feature film adaptation of Deborah Ellis’s The Breadwinner that just got itself an Oscar nomination.
Fulfilling a variety of key roles at the studio, Nora’s has served as Creative Director on projects such as preschool series Puffin Rock, as well as co-directing the 2009 feature The Secret of Kells alongside co-founder Tomm Moore, directing the short films From Darkness (2002) and Cúilín Dualach (2004) and serving as Head of Story on Song Of The Sea (2014).
Having received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, The Breadwinner has gone on to receive a Golden Globe nomination and multiple nominations for the Annie Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards, winning Best Animation at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards and Leeds International Film Festival.
Also discussed in this episode: A look at the other animated Academy Award contenders, BAFTA nominations and early impressions of Aardman's Early Man,  Stream this episode below or direct download:

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!

The Toys Go Winding Down

Today the thirtieth episode of the Skwigly Podcast went up, featuring a trio of stunningly talented animation heroes. I speak with fellow Canuck and stalwart NFB director Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back/Strange Invaders/Runaway) on his new film If I Was God, while Laura-Beth Cowley catches up with Australian 'clayographer' Adam Elliot to learn about his wonderful new film Ernie Biscuit. Meanwhile Julia Young, who has been absolutely killing it for us on all fronts (in particular with some extensive coverage of this year's Annecy festival) talks to Cartoon Saloon co-founder Tomm Moore, director of the amazing feature film Song of the Sea which has been mesmerising international audiences for months and is now finally out in UK cinemas. For more on the film you can have a read of Julia's review and another written feature from a conversation I had with producer Paul Young on the fascinating and unique circumstances that led to the film getting off the ground.

Back to the podcast, it is of course all tied together with myself and Steve's usual onslaught of cartoon wafflage, delving into such territory as festival highlights, reboot remorse and the Manchester Animation Festival which Steve has been involved with of late. Midst the decline of animation-centric festivals the world over such events are a precious commodity indeed, so if you have an animated film to submit then make sure to get it in before August 15th.
On a more sombre note (not really), the podcast in its current state has come to an end with this episode. After three years and thirty great big gigantic episodes it's just not feasible to continue to produce them as I have done, and I'm not crazy about the increasing gaps between each one going up. Therefore I'll be taking a revised approach that will make for more frequent episodes and better structure overall, getting our Skwigly community of writers and contributors more involved. Quality and quantity! That's the hope, at least.
Until then you can subscribe, stream or download episode 30 and a billion thanks to all of you who've supported the podcast and kept it going. I had no possible idea when it first started that it would last this long but it's largely been a joy and, truly, one of the main reasons I've maintained such enthusiasm for the industry as a whole. So here's to the upcoming Skwigly Podcast v2.0!

Good gravy...