Eventful times ahead

Some stuff's a-happenin' in the near (and nearer) future you might want to check out if you happen to be nearby. First off a late (last?) hurrah for my short film Speed as it joins the wonderful German touring programme Shorts Attack following its inclusion in the Interfilm Berlin festival back in 2020. Starting today it'll be amongst the lineup of the October selection Wo die Liebe hinfällt (Where Love Falls) alongside some of my favourite recent animations Just A Guy (Shoko Hara), Cipka (Renata Gasiorowska), Dans La Nature (Marcel Barelli) and Mmm...Cat (Yongxin Wang) as well as some live action shorts that look like fun. Check out the full list of dates and venues over on their website if it sounds like your cup of Schwarztee.

In a few weeks the Fredrikstad Animation Festival will kick off in Norway. Having weighed in on the preselection for their national competition programme back in July I'll be back over there to host their Meet The Filmmakers: Short Film Competition Q&A session on Friday October 21st at 8:30pm. As well as the various shorts programmes some event highlights to look out for include masterclasses with Mark Burton, Marie-Laure Guisset and Peter de Sève plus a screening of the wonderful Signe Baumane's My Love Affair With Marriage. You can check out the full schedule here.

Next month the Manchester Animation Festival will be back at HOME for a full physical edition after being mainly online for the last couple years. I'll be there for a nice chunk of it to muck in with several of the events - the Skwigly Screening will return for the first time since COVID on November 14th at 2pm and there'll be a special live edition of mine and Laura-Beth's podcast Intimate Animation on the 16th at 3:45pm. Later that day at 8pm our traditionally infuriating Skwigly Quiz will give festivalgoers a chance to viciously compete with one another before scratching and clawing their way to the prize table. There'll also be a screening of the Linoleum programme Sensitive Content followed by my recorded Q&A with the participants at 6pm on the 14th and Laura-Beth will be part of the panel Animated Answers: 3D Printing at 4pm on the 15th. As always there's a ton of other great stuff that'd be too long to list here so go ahead and check out the programme and grab yourself a pass.

Seasons of culture

Some news on the international events front this time around. Earlier in the month I was honoured to be part of this year's preselection team for the Fredrikstad Animation Festival that focuses on new work from the Nordic region, alongside festival director Anders Narverud Moen and Merete Korsberg of Krystallplaneten. Given the curational remit of the festival it proved a uniquely interesting look at the current animation scene from that particular corner of the globe and I'm really excited to share the programme we've been able to put together later on in the summer. All being well I'll be over there again for the event itself, which runs from October 20th-23rd, so give us a shout if you happen to be around.

In the meantime, Skwigly have paired up with the Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival for I'M FINE!, a joint cultural project supported by the British Council within the framework of the UK/Ukraine Season of Culture. With a focus on mental health, specifically the pernicious issue of burnout, the event will take the form of film screenings curated by Linoleum director Anastasiia Verlinska and Skwigly's Aaron Wood who drafted me in to create some exclusive content with the participating filmmakers that will accompany the programme. We'll also be putting out interview panels as podcasts in the near future, so keep your eyes and ears on the ol' Skwigly podcast feed. As well as I'M FINE! and the accompanying programme Sensitive Content being included as part of Linoleum's online edition via the platform MEGOGO from September 7th-11th, there'll also be some physical screenings starting August 27th at the Chichester International Film Festival.

Obviously with Linoleum being a Ukrainian event the issues presented are especially timely, and while the festival as a whole has been able to continue in spite of unfathomably challenging circumstances they still could do with some help, so if you have any funds to spare you can learn how you can give them a hand here.