Festivities approach...

You like films? Of course you do, you're not a creep. In celebration of liking films and not being a creep then, I bring you the news that the Encounters Short Film Festival have unveiled their Official Selection and, having been a little more involved on the animation preselection side of things than usual this time around, I can attest it's a belter of a line-up. Among some of my personal highlights to watch out for are Marine Blin's What Resonates in Silence, Marie Valade's Lolos, Ida Melum's Night of the Living Dread, Renee Zhan's Soft Animals, Marnik Loysen's Brunch, Urška Djukić's Granny's Sexual Life, Michael Cusack's The Better Angels and Franck Dion's Under the Skin, the Bark as well as work by recent Skwigly interviewees Joanna Quinn (Affairs of the Art), Anna Ginsburg (A Love Hate Relationship), Claude Cloutier (Bad Seeds), Cliona Noonan (Wet & Soppy), Michelle Kranot (The Hangman at Home) and Daniel Gray (Hide).

While I had to recuse myself from selecting it personally (although I would've without hesitation or the tiniest pang of guilt) I'm pleased to see that Laura-Beth's new film Crafty Witch will also be among the selection. I did the post-production on this one but it's the brilliant concept and process Laura-Beth came up with, along with some fantastic animation pre-vis from retro whizkid Sam Shaw, that really makes it.

This year's edition of Encounters will take place online through the entire month of September and you can grab your festival passes here. Fingers crossed there may be some physical events also, so watch this space.

Another event I'll be pitching in on is the British Animation Awards which has opened the Call for Entries for its next edition that will take place March 10th 2022. Be sure to get your new work submitted by October 29th if it falls into any of the following categories:

• Best Undergraduate Student
• Film Best Postgraduate Student Film
• Best Short Film
• Best Design
• Best Voice Performance
• Best Use of Sound
• Best Music Video
• Best Children’s Pre-school Series
• Best Long Form Animation
• Best Children’s Series
• Best Animation in a Commercial
• Writers Award
• Best Original Music
• Social Good Award
• Best Immersive Animation
• Lamb Award
• Cutting-Edge Award
• Factual Award
• Wildcard Award (new for 2022)

The BAAs will also present their Public Choice category – for which audiences can vote – in the lead-up to the ceremony.

Next Up

A couple of news dribbles - firstly I now have specifics on the participation of Sunscapades in the 18th edition of Magma - Mostra di Cinema Breve in Acireale, Italy. You can catch the film in the first International Competition screening on Friday November 22nd 8:30pm at the Margherita Multisala alongside some brilliant new shorts including Karina Paciorkowska's You Are Overreacting, Justine Vuylsteker's Embraced and Kids by Michael Frei.

The Skwigly events at last week's Manchester Animation Festival went down a storm, and for those who swung by that might want to learn more about the various films that were screened there are a few interviews up with some of the filmmakers involved: Sam Shaw (You Died!),  Sine and Imge Özbilge (#21xoxo), Erin Kim (Revenge Story), Yves Paradis (M52) and Shenja Tatschke (5 Reasons Why I Don't Trust Jellyfish). There are more to come so be sure to keep your eyes on our Interviews section.
Massive kudos to Jen, Steve and Greg from MAF on another brilliant year and much gratitude to everyone who came to the screening and quiz as well as the HOME tech team for getting us up and running.

Lastly it looks like Secrets of British Animation, the BBC4 documentary that occasionally features my big talking head in unnecessarily-full HD waffling on about the virtues of dirty cartoons, will be getting itself a repeat screening this Sunday at 10pm. Pencil it in!