Carnage

Following up on my first post of the month I can confirm that Sunscapades will indeed be getting itself another German screening at the wonderful International Short Film Festival Detmold before May is through. It'll sneak in on the 31st as part of their International Mixed Short Films block which kicks off 10pm at the Culture & Art gallery.

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A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on May 23, 2019 at 2:23am PDT

I also hinted at hitting a bit of a milestone in my last post and, having double-checked all my documentation, can confirm that with the film's subsequent inclusion in the Sydney Film Festival's Animation After Dark programme on June 6th I will have officially cleared 200 international festival inclusions!
Granted this is spread over ten years and five films, but I’ll allow myself a wee nugget of pride having operated without representation, distributors or sales agents all this time.
So much love and gratitude to all the festivals and touring programmes, whether still kicking around or not, who took a punt on my weird shit over the years.

May Days

Sunscapades appears to be trundling merrily along with a batch of screening events lined up through the summer. I don't have firm info on all of them yet but there are a couple coming up this month that seem to be set in stone. Firstly it will be screening at the rather magnificent Anifilm International Festival of Animated Films in Třeboň, Czech Republic as part of a special late-night screening (this is becoming a bit of a recurring - and welcome - theme) Midnight Animation: Blood. This will be Friday May 10th 11:30pm at the Světozor Cinema.

A week later it will be in the similarly-themed Late Night Bizarre programme that takes place during the Australian International Animation Festival, alongside some new work from the likes of Will Anderson, Peter Millard and Jodie Haslam as well as some familiar recent shorts I'm quite fond of such as Lorenz Wunderle's Coyote and recent Skwigly interviewee David Barlow-Krelina's Caterpillarplasty. It looks like a fun one but if you can't make it to Wagga Wagga I get the impression the screening itself will be playing at a couple other fests down under in the near future.

At the end of the month the 15th Detmold Short Film Festival will kick off, assuredly with Sunscapades somewhere among the line-up although no specifics just yet (update to follow). This marks my third inclusion at Detmold following the selection of The Naughty List in 2011 as well as being one of the small handful of fests that gave Ground Running a punt the following year, so I've got a bit of a soft spot for 'em.

Book'n'Bill'n'Baby

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Thanks for taking the time to procrastinate and/or avoid real life long enough to drop by and enable my blathering bloggery.

SO my second convention appearance - at which I will be slinging "Throat" and other forms of cartooney booklike product - is this coming weekend at the London MCM Expo, which will be at Excel from the 25th to the 27th. Even if you don't give a care (pardon my language) about my book, there's loads of fungasmic shit to do, so book your tickets and get your sexy arses down there.

To discuss a book that I wasn't involved with (for what I can only assume would be a welcome change) I recently had the pleasure of being able to read and review the new book by indie animation legend and personal hero Bill Plympton, "Make Toons That Sell Without Selling Out". It's the perfect type of book for auteur animation filmmakers like myself and contains a great deal of guidance as far as honing one's skills, self-promotion and marketing, as well as some insights into the production processes of Mr. Plympton himself. The full review is online at Skwigly now:

"Make Toons That Sell Without Selling Out" - Review by Ben Mitchell
 

Okay, back to me! "Ground Running", my troublesome second film, is getting itself a rare and much-appreciated festival screening soon, at the 8th Detmold International Short Film Festival in Germany, which goes from the 7th-10th June. My film is part of their Animation screening on Friday (8th) at 4pm. The 7th edition was fantabulous enough to include "The Naughty List" so, having been included twice consecutively, I daresay they are a festival with highly refined tastes. I know, I know, I deserve to die alone. But then, don't we all, when you really think about it?

Timing

I now have some specifics regarding a couple of previously mentioned screenings for "The Naughty List". It will be shown on Saturday 23rd at the Dawson City Film Festival's 'Beyond Aurora' section which begins 11:30pm. Also included in that selection is David O'Reilly's short "The External World" which is a pretty spectacular piece of work, so I'm very happy that my li'l toon is in good company.A couple months down the line it will close the 4pm short film screening at the Detmold Short Film Festival on June 9th.Also, just today I learned of its inclusion in Florida's Citrus Cel Animation Festival on April 10th...which was five days ago. Ah well, still nice that it's getting out there. Looked like a grand event overall, some really nice shorts included and it opened with Bill Plympton's "Idiots & Angels". I may have mentioned I'm a fan of his.
Speaking of which, I've spent the last few days inhaling his new autobiography "Independently Animated". I want to give it a proper review sometime soon but in short I'll say it's an essential read to any auteur animators out there, obviously for general fans of his as well. What I especially liked about it was learning about stuff he'd done I hadn't known about, such as this lovely piece on the cultural 'value' of abstract animation:
Well, much like Richard Gere in that army flick, 'I got nothin' else...'
Laters.

Globally Jammed

I returned to my apartment after work a few days ago to see this a-waitin' for me:You can't not be in a good mood when one of your industry heroes personally sends you a package. The closest experience I've had so far was when Milla Jovovich issued that restraining order. In this case it was some amazing and unexpected original artwork from Bill Plympton in exchange for my contribution to "Guard Dog Global Jam" (more info here) which has, according to the man himself, 'been a big success, lots of festivals from around the world inviting it for exhibition'. I've been fortunate enough to see the finished film and it is truly excellent, inspiring and humbling all at once. Plus seeing my name and stupid grinning face in the credits of a Plymptoon = an instant animation boner.While I'm already up and a-bloggin', here are some more festival inclusions for "The Naughty List". At some point between the 9th and 13th June it'll be shown at the International Short Film Festival Detmold in Germany, marking its third festival in the great nation of wurst.
It also makes its third appearance in Canada later this month at the 3rd Annual 'Show Us Your Shorts' Festival of Short Film in Calgary on the 22nd.On the 30th it'll be screened at the Magma Short Film Festival in New Zealand. I fuggin' love New Zealand. I was only there once when I was twelve but it made a big impression and I'm officially envious of my own film. Stupid smug film, getting to see the world when all I see day in and day out is the same view from my studio window and sure sometimes the hot Russian girl in flat 21 walks in front of her window topless but you can only be enchanted by the same pair of nipples for so long which I suppose is why I'm so not into the concept of monogamy and will in all likelihood die cold and alone in my own arms.
So...that's...where I'm at...yep.
The cool thing is that the film has at this point been accepted into over twenty festivals in less than six months which, as it took significantly longer for "House Guest" to be as widely screened, I'm taking as a very positive indicator that the quality of my work is improving.
As I can't think of a way to wrap this one up, I'll just leave you with a random panel from a completely separate comic book project I'm working on: