Last Orders

In our final Skwigly Animation Podcast episode of 2021 we're delighted to welcome the teams behind some of this holiday season’s most anticipated animation projects. Our prolific contributor Martyn Warren speaks with Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith, the directors of Disney's Encanto, as well as the film's producer Clark Spencer. We also welcome Jac Hamman and Sarah Scrimgeour, the directors of Magic Light's latest Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler adaptation Superworm which airs 2:30pm Xmas day on BBC1.

Another animated adaptation hitting screens on December 25th is Eagle Eye Drama's take on Terry Pratchett's The Abominable Snow Baby, which airs 7:30pm on Channel 4 following the success of their 2020 animated version of Quentin Blake's Clown; director Massimo Fenati joins us to talk about his career and how the projects came together.

Also discussed in this episode: The recent passing and legacy of respected animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi, Manchester Animation Festival 2021 event highlights, podcast fanmail, this year’s new South Park specials and the catastrophic reception to the new seasonal stop-motion series Santa Inc. Stream above or clickety-here to download.

If you're after more holiday viewing then it's worth mentioning that the BBC4 documentary Secrets of British Animation was recently repeated, which means it'll be on the ol' iPlayer for the next few weeks. It's a great (if brief) look at what the UK has brought to the table on the animation front, occasionally interrupted by myself and Steve offering up the odd bon mot here and there, so if you missed it the first time around give it a look-see.

A'ight fam, I'm out. See y'all in '22.

Passing the time

Just a heads-up that if you missed the repeat screening of BBC4's Secrets of British Animation, in which I occasionally appear as a sort of beardy linking device, it will be available to UK viewers via BBC iPlayer for the next month or so. Enjoy! It's got dirty bits and all.

With Black Friday moodily skulking around the corner there'll soon be another opportunity to get your mitts on my book Independent Animation: Directing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films at a reduced price if you pick it up directly from the publisher. Starting November 29th through to December 2nd it will be available at a whopping 30% off with free shipping on top. Indulge your seasonal consumerism and buy copies for all your independently-inclined animation pals! They'll love ya for it.

This one has nothing to do with me save for being a gushy little fanboy but what. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck. Are Faith No More counting down to? This appeared on their site a couple days ago after years of radio silence and I'm ever-so-slightly losing my mind. Roll on 7pm...
(UPDATE: It's a tour! Hurrah!)

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!

For the Francophones

Sunscapades is still nosing its way into the odd festival here and there, with its next screening taking place in Montreal, probably my favourite city. It will be part of Festival Courts d'un Soir which runs from April 3rd-6th, in the programme Les Très Courts on the 5th, 5pm at Cinéma Beaubien.

Later in the month, as an extension of its involvement in the Brussels Independent Short Film Festival: Courts Mais Trash back in January the film will also be screened during the Brussels International Fantasy, Fantastic, Thriller and Science Fiction Film Festival (BIFFF). Festivalgoers can catch it in the special programme Carte Blanche on April 20th at 10pm (not sure of the venue so I'd suggest checking the festival website closer to the time).

Back on iPlayer for another month or so: https://t.co/Ln7YaWfn3N https://t.co/Pvvykgk9jU

— Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) March 14, 2019

Not a whole heap else to report for now although it's worth flagging that Secrets of British Animation, the documentary I peripherally contributed to which originally aired in December, was repeated the other day and so will be on the BBC iPlayer for another few weeks if you missed it the first time around.

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.

Skwigly: We're woke as f*ck

In the latest episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we welcome back one of our earliest guests, Paperman director John Kahrs, whose latest film Age of Sail was made for Google Spotlight Stories and launched online earlier this month. Give 'er a listen below or direct download here.
Also discussed in this episode: Skwigly’s Manchester Animation Festival events, the brilliance of Frame Order, Women In Animation’s male allies panel at Annecy, the response to Ringling College’s dismissal of Anime and the upcoming BBC4 documentary Secrets of British Animation. - the broadcast date for which has been confirmed as this Sunday, December 2nd at 9pm. So pencil it in, you pencilling little pencillers!

On the subject of firming up times and dates, I now know that Sunscapades will screen as part of the 16th MUMIA Underground World Animation Festival's International Competion 8 programme at 6:30pm December 6th at the Sesc Palladium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Should be a fun time, so get your fine Brazilian selves down there.

Speaking of Brazil, following the series' broadcast earlier this year on CINEBRASiLTV, one of the episodes of the Brazilian preschool series Lendas Animadas that I animated is now available to watch for free on the streaming platform comKids. It will probably make it easier if you speak Portuguese, although I can't and I followed it well enough to animate it. I'm pretty sure the main message is that singing turtles are troublemakers.

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.