Speedy September

Hey there, youngfolk. You're all looking sprightly today.

Some general updates regarding the screening schedule of my latest film Speed for the rest of this month, which has turned out to be rather busy. Firstly the magnificent folks over at Pictoplasma will be showing it as part of their third short film programme Together, Apart, which will stream this Saturday September 19th at 5pm Germany time (4pm here in the UK) on the Festival Stream channel. If you're a fellow attendee I'm gonna try and nose my way into the Zoom meet'n'greet directly after the programme, so maybe see you there.

This weekend also sees the Encounters Film Festival here in Bristol kicking off for three massive weeks up until October 11th. My understanding is that, rather than there being specific screening slots, festival passholders will have access to the full programme to peruse at their leisure for the duration, so get on it! I will however be participating in a livestreamed filmmaker Q&A that festivalgoers can tune into this coming Wednesday, September 23rd at noon. In fact I'll be hosting a few of the other sessions as I'd previously done for the physical edition, so there's a chance you'll see my adorable hairy mug regardless. UPDATE 18/09: I've also just gotten wind that Speed will be part of a special Comedy Shorts presentation that will stream to passholders from 8pm tonight!

Then on Saturday September 26th you can catch Speed as part of the digital programme for this year's Anima Syros, closing out their International Panorama V screening which starts at 10:30pm in the Posidonia Virtual Hall. For the more adventurous Grecians among ye, there will also be a nearly-simultaneous (starting 10:45pm that same night) open-air screening of the same programme you can check out instead, which will be at the Posidonia Tsiropina Mansion. Fancy!

Also on the 26th the film will be screening as part of the Tokyo Anime Award Festival's delayed presentation of this year's films in competition from earlier this year. Speed will screen in Slot 3 at 7pm, repeated the following day at 4:55pm at the New Bungeiza (Marhan Ikebukuro Building 3F).

In non-Speed-but-still-animation-screening-ey news, I should mention that Laura-Beth and I will again be mucking in with our pals at Cardiff Animation Nights this month for some Skwigly filmmaker Q&As, this time with participating animation talents Ivyy Chen (Isle of Chair) and Tobias Rud (But Jane Was Deaf) respectively. It's another pearler of a screening so be sure to tune in to their YouTube channel this Thursday September 24th at 8pm and treat yourselves.

Another staggered update

Some very happy news regarding my latest film Speed is that it's part of the official selection at this year's Pictoplasma conference. This is an organisation I've been an enormous fan of since before I even started making films so to finally have work included is a real coup. It'll run from September 18th-19th, naturally it'll be an online iteration but their guest line-up and fellow official selectees are all top-notch, plus it's completely free, so it should be pretty damn great. You can check out what's on offer here.

Those wonderful folks over at Routledge are having themselves a summer sale, which means that my chunky book Independent Animation: Developing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films is along for the ride at a glorious 20% off until the beginning of August. Don't forget there's FREE SHIPPING on top of that, friends. Grab yourself a copy today and stave off them pesky lockdown anxiety attacks with 440+ pages of indie animation wonderment!

Speaking of books, I've gotten wind that all of the paperback editions of my independent graphic novels have disappeared from Lulu. After a bit of lazy sleuthing it looks like there's been some big update over there and a bunch of stuff's been thrown out of whack, so I'll look into getting them back up but from what I gather their customer service has been lax lately so don't hold your breath.

In truth I'm not really sure if I'll bother as sales of all of them have slowed to a crawl and, while it was a pretty nifty thing in my early 20s, the thrill of the self-published indie comics scene has waned a touch 10+ years on. You can still buy the non-Lulu version of Throat, which I remain kind of proud of, as a three volume set via Amazon and various other outlets. There might be something in re-releasing that as a single book again down the line, we'll see.

A graphic novel project I'm altogether more excited about is the long-awaited print edition of the late great Rosto's absurdist, metaphysical opus Mind My Gap, which finally arrived alongside a stunning vinyl soundtrack to his Thee Wreckers tetralogy and various other goodies. Before he passed away I was peripherally involved in the book as a proof-reader and it's wonderful to see it made flesh by the folks at Autour de Minuit who have really done the fella proud. I'm not sure what future plans there are for non-backers to be able to buy a copy but if I hear anything I'll definitely post it up as it's turned out beautifully and the more people who own it the better.

If you haven't swung by Skwiglyville in a while then you might want to catch up on some of our recent Annecy 2020 coverage, including a new interview with Andreas Hykade about his latest film Altötting. The Skwigly Film Club has also been continuing and the last few weeks have seen us do watch-throughs of Chicken Run, Isle of Dogs, James and the Giant Peach (featuring special guest Joseph Wallace), Watership Down and The Little Prince. Swing by the podcasts section of the site to check them out and get in touch if you have any future film suggestions.

Think that's all I got for this month so far. As you were.

Clayographical

The latest Skwigly piece of mine went up this week, and I can't sing the praises of its focus highly enough. It's a feature on/interview with the Oscar-winning Australian animator/writer/director Adam Elliot, a man whose work manages to be both retro (visually) and progressive (story-wise). His most recent project is "Mary & Max", the fantastic stop-motion feature which I brought up on here a couple years back.Even though I didn't become aware of his work until I began my MA back in 2006, I was instantly bowled over when I saw "Cousin" as part of a Pictoplasma DVD - somewhat incongruously as the bulk of the collection focused on digital character-based motion graphics.I think what grabbed me the most about his stuff was, at a time when people throw mental illness and tragedy into their films to disingenuously tug at audience heartstrings, Elliot takes the same subject matter and makes it fucking hilarious. Which, in turn, makes the somber elements all the more touching and honest. I won't go on about him too much here as it's a long-ass article and says everything I have to say far more coherently than these blog ramblings o' mine. But, if by some bizarre happenstance you're an animation fan and haven't encountered him, please give it a read and/or check out his work.

A Conversation With Adam Elliot