November News Dump

This week on Skwigly our tradition of bringing our lovely listenership a taste of the KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival has continued, with another batch of podcast minisodes released featuring all of this year's filmmaker Q'n'A sessions. This time around the interviews are hosted by Anna Eijsbouts, who herself was featured as one of the directors in our recent Cardiff Animation Festival minisode series earlier this year with her film Hate For Sale. These chats span a huge gamut of perspectives and insights into student, indie and professional filmmaking so definitely give them some of your time. You can listen to the full set of minisodes below:
Speaking of festivals, don't forget that next week is the fourth edition of the Manchester Animation Festival, fast becoming one of the industry's most exciting fests and boasting its best line-up to date. As well as the usual programmes there are special events including a Barry Purves retrospective and behind-the-scenes presentations for Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, Isle of Dogs, This Magnificent Cake and The Highway Rat, not to mention a whole heap of panels loaded with industry wisdom if that's what you're in the market for.

Of course the event with the most bang for its buck is the cheap-as-free Skwigly Screening, another selection of excellent shorts (plus Sunscapades for filler) that aren't playing elsewhere at the festival. These were personally hand-picked from various showcase scoutings and festival preselections I've been involved with over the last year or so as well as a couple of recommendations from the MAF team that didn't quite make the official selection. These screenings are always a joy to put together and I hope some of you can check it out. It'll take place 5pm Wednesday November 14th at the Event Space in the festival's main venue HOME. The full list of films are as follows:

• Living Like Heta (Dir. Bianca Caderas/Isabella Luu/Kerstin Zemp)
• Donald Trump Watching The Voice (Dir. Joost Lieuwma)
• Ooze (Dir. Kilian Vilim)
• Thirsty (Dir. Oscar Barany)
• Room (Dir. Michał Socha)
• Winston (Dir. Aram Sarkisian)
• The Hanging of Cowboy Benny (Dir. Joost Lieuwma)
• Haley and Joanna (Dir. Laura Jayne Hodkin)
• Adam (Dir. Emma Allen)
• Sunscapades (Dir. Ben Mitchell)
• Flipped (Dir. Hend Esmat/Lamiaa Diab)
• Letting Go (Dir. Ülo Pikkov)
• Fortune Telling at the Airport (Dir. Joost Lieuwma)

Immediately afterward in the same room Steve and I will be torturing festivalgoers with another edition of our infamous Skwigly Quiz. The questions will kick your arse but the prizes will be pretty amazing so you may as well try your luck. On the following day (the 15th) you should also swing by the Student Films Panorama to catch Laura-Beth Cowley's wonderful Boris-Noris. The one will be at 2:20pm at Cinema 2.

Also on the 15th I can confirm the screening time for Sunscapades at the Abertoir International Horror Festival of Wales will be at 3pm for Short Films Competition Part 1. The festival takes place at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Ceredigion, Wales and should be a blast, so check out the full schedule here and swing by if you can.  

Right after that will be the Rome Independent Film Festival, an event that will see Sunscapades return to the fragrant shores of Italy. You can catch it in the shorts programme that will kick off at 4:20pm at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila on Monday November 19th!

Meanwhile, back here in the rainy U of K, the BFI will be presenting a special preview of a new BBC4 documentary Secrets of British Animation followed by an onstage chat with the director Seb and the legendary Joanna Quinn, who I gather is featured quite prominently in the documentary (rightly so). I've not seen it yet but having had some peripheral involvement in it I can definitely say it's been put together with a lot of love and consideration. Plus hearing Joanna talk animation is always a joy, so if you can get yourself a ticket you won't regret it. Right now the broadcast date isn't 100% confirmed but I'll follow up when I know for sure.

One last November nugget to nibble on is the excellent news that, following the first game's release on Nintendo Switch earlier this year, The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle - Episode 2: A Bleaker Predicklement will be doing likewise on the 22nd! Be sure to get it downloaded and treat yourselves to more puzzles, puns and dubious, hopefully-not-actually-offensive accents from my good self.
Now g'wan and get back to work, you.

More Chats

In the past week on Skwigly there have been a couple of long-overdue (in so much as they're about people I've wanted to feature for a fair few years now) pieces gone up that are both worth sharing. Firstly I've posted up a Q'n'A with Dutch animator Joost Lieuwma of Frame Order. I first met Joost back in 2011 for that year's edition of ITFS Stuttgart, where my film The Naughty List was playing out of competition. That particular trip turned out to be a turning point in several ways - it yielded my first Skwigly features, something that's obviously become a major part of my life, and started a chain of events that got my film in the hands of one my biggest industry heroes, in front of an Annecy audience and, eventually, on TV. Those aside I have a very clear memory of how the quality of the work playing in competition deeply inspired me, far more so than any other festival had up to that point. Among said films was Joost's hilarious and brilliant exercise in simplicity Things You'd Better Not Mix Up, and as the year's passed he'd continue to make equally wonderful work such as Leaving Home, How Dave and Emma Got Pregnant and Panic! (co-directed by Daan Velsink) which I was honoured to see screening alongside my last film Klementhro when I finally made it back to Stuttgart last year. Since then Joost has been knocking out a series of brilliant micro-shorts called Cartoon-Box, one of which will be playing at Stuttgart tomorrow (alas I didn't have anything to submit to this year's edition but knock wood Sunscapades will make the grade in 2018). Have a read of the interview here and treat yourself to some of his work, you won't regret it.

Another feature you should have a read of is Laura-Beth's recent conversation with Bristol-based director Emma Lazenby. Emma's work, generally centered around medical subjects (although she recently served as Art Director on the recent Disney series Nina Needs to Go! that some other buddies of mine worked on) has always proved to be thoughtful, charming and a great example of how animation can be used to put across more sensitive topics without necessarily being stoic or clinical. Back in 2010 her ArthurCox/Channel 4 film Mother of Many deservedly won itself a BAFTA and it remains a particularly strong marriage of visuals (with some uncompromisingly non-cinematic yet accessible depictions of childbirth and midwifery) and sound, boasting a wonderful percussive soundtrack by David Schweitzer.
Since then she has gone on to form ForMed Films, other films of note including One of a Kind, A Little Deep Sleep and My Mum's Got a Dodgy Brain. In the interview - which you can read here - Emma also talks a bit about her upcoming project Perinatal Positivity for which she'll be raising funds over the next few weeks. Learn more about how you can get involved by giving the video a watch below: