Autumnal outings

Some events comin' up for ya. The Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival's I'M FINE! programme put together in collaboration with Skwigly is getting itself another screening in Lviv this Friday, November 24th. This one will be happening 6:30pm at America House and is completely free. You can register for it here.

On that subject, the fourth I'M FINE! podcast minisode from our filmmaker Q&A sessions is online now (stream/download), featuring insights from Konrad Hjemli, Jakob Eiring (Pandiculation) and Anna Samo (Conversations With A Whale).

Another event coming up that I, in all honesty, had just about nothing to do with is the premiere of Ainslie Henderson's Shackle, which will get its first public outing at London International Animation Festival on Nov 25th. Laura-Beth played a significant part in developing the eye mechanisms of the puppets and, frankly, I'm a pretty big Ainslie fan so I felt like giving it a shout-out. Also screening will be the feature-length mixed-media documentary A Cat Called Dom by longtime collaborator and Shackle producer Will Anderson, as well as Will's short film Betty. It starts 6:10pm at The Barbican and all told it looks to be a great way to kick off the festival, so check it out if you're in the city.

Speaking of Laura-Beth, which we sort of were, there's another chance to catch her recent short film Crafty Witch (on which I slapped some post-FX and noises) as part of the Cardiff Animation Festival touring programme of 2022 award winners. If you're in or about Milford Haven on the 30th swing on by the Torch Theatre for 8pm (more info here).

A little earlier than that, on the 25th Crafty Witch (or Ravasz Boszorkány) will get a Hungarian screening at the Anilogue International Animation Festival in Budapest. It will be part of the micro-shorts screening Ultrarövid Animációk that takes place 8pm at Toldi Art Mozi. Grab your passes here.

Unseasonable Warmth

I'll start as I intend to go on with this entry; radiating sunbeams of positivity that will warm your heart and carry you through the day. In that spirit I'd like to let you all know that Taylor and Francis/CRC Press have resumed their site-wide sale - that sees my book Independent Animation: Developing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films available at 20% off - through to the end of year. Plus you save even more if you grab it up with another CRC book - or why not just buy multiple copies of mine and stuff them in the stockings of your nearests and dearests this holiday season? You'll have to really ram them in there though, they're quite bulky.

It's a busy end of the year for Sunscapades, and I'm excited to be headed down to the London International Animation Festival this Saturday for its inclusion in the Late Night Bizarre programme (9pm at the Horse Hospital - be sure to come or all those horse ghosts will never find peace).
On December 13th the film returns to Brazil for the CRASH (formerly TRASH) International Fantastic Film Festival. This will be part of the 3pm International Shorts 1 screening at the Cine Cultura in Goiânia.
Kicking off shortly after that will be Romania's Ploiesti International Film Festival, an event that had the damn fine taste to screen Klementhro back in 2016. Reassuringly Sunscapades has also passed muster and will be playing in the festival's Dark Comedy section.
It will also be presented in Georgia at the Tbilisi International Film Festival 6pm tonight at the Cinema House as part of a special Best Of British Animation screening curated by the Anilab/Encounters Festival team and introduced by my pal Laura Tof.

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Tonight at 9pm on BBC FOUR UK viewers can tune into a brand new documentary “Secrets of British Animation” and keep an eye open for Steve and Ben nestled in amongst some real legends of British Animation! #animation #britishanimation

A post shared by Skwigly Animation (@skwiglyanimation) on Dec 2, 2018 at 11:06am PST

Speaking of UK Animation, as previously mentioned the BBC4 documentary Secrets of British Animation screened last night to much enthusiasm and will be available on the BBC iPlayer for the next month or so if you didn't catch it. Personal highlights include a wonderful segment on Joanna Quinn and a behind-the-scenes look at my 2017 summer fling Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires. At only an hour it could never have been a fully comprehensive overview of all of British animation's best and brightest, but the laundry list of conspicuous absences make a pretty good case for a follow-up doc or maybe something more like a series down the line. Fingers crossed someone over at the BBC feels the same way. At any rate be sure to get it watched while you can and massive kudos to director Seb Barfield, producer Sophie Taylor and the rest of the Academy 7 team for a fantastic job.

Spreading Some Sunshine

As the days grow darker and chillier I take some comfort in seeing that Sunscapades is gradually picking up steam, with international screenings scheduled through the new year and the online community ablaze and agog with chatter about its impact on the independent filmmaking scene (by which I mean a few people have tweeted about it). One upcoming event who've just announced their full programme is the excellent London International Animation Festival, one I've frequently attended in a Skwigly capacity but never before as a filmmaker. Fortunately Sunscapades has been deemed grim enough to be part of their Late Night Bizarre programme on Saturday December 8th at the Horse Hospital, an indie arts venue that's no doubt riddled with angry horse ghosts whose vengeful equine spirits can only be assuaged by my cartoon merriment. You know how it goes.

In the more immediate future I have some updates on the busy few days the film has ahead, with screenings in Wales, Serbia and the US coming up. First off the SoDak Motion Festival in Brookings SD will include it on October 25th in their official selection that kicks off at 7pm. This will be at the South Dakota Art Museum (I'd previously mentioned it would also play in Sioux Falls on the 27th but I gather that one's been cancelled - FIE ON YOU, SIOUX FALLIANS. FIE I SAY!).
The following evening it will be in Serbia for Film Front, who've now announced the International Selection screening time will be 8pm at the Novi Sad Cultural Center.
Finally on Saturday 27th I'll be heading over to Chapter in Cardiff to catch the film's inclusion as part of Cardiff Animation Frights, which starts at 7pm - tickets for the screening are now on sale and as it's my birthday eve I'll be in an extra jubilant mood, so come along and keep me company as I continue to age gracelessly.

The Ron & John Show

For our sixty-third episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we hear from directorial duo Ron Clements and John Musker – whose prior credits include the much-loved Disney features The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992) and Hercules (1997), as well as the more recent 2D animation revival film The Princess and the Frog (2009) – about their latest film Moana, out now in cinemas.
Also discussed in this episode: Animation UK’s recent announcement at 10 Downing Street, highlights from the London International Animation Festival, the continued success of Claude Barras’s My Life as a Courgette/Zucchini, incurring the wrath of Hayao Miyazaki and the bad influence of a certain Quoanna Jinn. Give it a stream down below, you streaming little streamy streamersons: