What? 'Spalpeen' is definitely a word.

Happy Monday, youngfolk!

This year's edition of the magnificent Encounters Film Festival has announced its Official Selection, which I'm excited to say includes my latest film Speed as well as Laura-Beth's The Gift among what looks like an absolutely stellar line-up. For those of you paying attention - yes, I was on the preselection team for the festival again and no, I didn't get to preselect the films I worked on. But I would have in a goddamn heartbeat because I'm a lovably unscrupulous spalpeen and, frankly, they're delightful.

Other personal highlights include some films/filmmakers recently covered on Skwigly, such as Michaela Mihályi and David Štumpf's SH_T HAPPENS, Theodore Ushev's The Physics of Sorrow, Andreas Hykade's Altötting and Robin Shaw's The Tiger Who Came To Tea. 

Of course this will be a digital edition and you can find out more info as it comes via the festival website in the coming weeks.

That reminds me, following up on my earlier post regarding Speed's inclusion as part of Fest Anča's Extremely Short Selection of Extremely Short Films - it looks like that one is indeed going ahead as a physical edition. Obviously they have precautions set up but it'll be an indoor screening, so if you swing by then be sure to be safe and, y'know, make sure you don't hug your nan for a while. At any rate it'll be this Friday 11pm at the Stanica Žilina-Záriečie in the EKSEKF 2 programme.

Back to Skwiglyville, we've wrapped up our second batch of Skwigly Film Club episodes, so if you're not yet caught up then head over to the site to catch our recent watch-throughs of George Dunning's Yellow Submarine and Jonathan Myerson's The Canterbury Tales. Also if you want to weigh in on what we look at next then be sure to keep an eye on our Twitter and cast your votes during the playoffs.

If you fancy something else to listen to then you can siphon a previously-unreleased upload I dusted off over the weekend into your trembling little earholes. This is an alternate, non-explicit edit of the opening track to my 2015 LP The Birdcage plucked from a pile of prospective b-sides for the next EP that will hopefully be going up soon. It was quite a long time ago that I put this one together so I don't remember much about making it other than having some fun with the funky-worm synth during the bridge. Anyways, here it is:

Struwwelpeter · Act Right (Clean Edit)

Weren't that purtey? Right, now scram, ya ingrates.

To stop your minds from wandering

In episode 82 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we look back on George Dunning’s iconic contribution to British animated cinema Yellow Submarine some fifty years on.
The film will be celebrating the lead-up to its 50th anniversary this Sunday (July 8th) through a number of newly-restored theatrical screenings across the UK in association with organisations such as Anim18, the BFI, Everyman Cinemas and Picturehouse Cinemas. Keep your eyes on the Anim18 website for future events including a screening at Birmingham’s MAC on the anniversary itself (July 17th) and a number of special interactive ‘singalong’ screenings from August.
This one gave me an excuse to feature a segment with my father Lynn who was among the weekend workers doing cel painting on the film in the mad rush to get it done. Also Laura-Beth speaks with Gillian Lacey, one of the film's Assistant Animators who would go on to set up the Leeds Animation Workshop and teach at the National Film and Television School.
Listen below or direct download:
Also discussed in this episode: The legacy of Smallfilms founder Peter Firmin who passed away earlier this month and whose own body of work (alongside co-founder Oliver Postgate) included such classic UK series as The Clangers and Bagpuss. Peter also guested on the podcast in episode 60 a couple years' back: