Cardiff Animation Festival (CAF) is back for its second year, announcing its official selection of 118 animated short films from around the world in competition. The lineup features unique voices and a diverse range of stories told by animated filmmakers from different backgrounds around the world. CAF reports over a quarter of the films selected were made by animators of color, and over half were directed by women.
CAF 2020 will be held Thursday, April 2 to Sunday, April 5 at indie arts hub and cinema space Chapter. Tickets will be on sale soon.
“We’re so excited to be back and bringing another jam-packed lineup of animation to Cardiff this April. Animation is an artform that doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves, and we’re really proud to celebrate it,” said Lauren Orme, Festival Director. “We had so many amazing animated short films to choose from this year that we decided to add an extra programme. We’ve got a brilliant and diverse selection of shorts that we’re really excited to share. There’s a huge audience for animation in Cardiff and beyond – the inaugural Cardiff Animation Festival in 2018 was really well received, with sell-out audiences and a huge buzz. We can’t wait to do it all again this year.”
Themed shorts screenings for adult audiences will include ‘Truth’, showcasing animated documentaries like Bloomers (Samantha Moore), a moving glimpse into British manufacturing; ‘Dare’, a late night screening of dark and strange shorts including gory and psychedelic revenge story Coyote (Lorenz Wunderle); and ‘Speechless’, films with no spoken or written language, like the hilarious Hors Piste (Léo Brunel, Loris Cavalier, Camille Jalabert, Oscar Malet).
Films about the environment and our place in the world, like sublime and transporting In Passing (Esther Cheung) and The Bear Hunter (Sayaka Hara), are brought together in a program called ‘Cynefin’, a Welsh word with no direct translation to English, but which roughly translates as “habitat”.
‘Heart’ features films about love and friendship, such as breathtaking adolescent adventure Nettle Head (Paul E. Cabon). Tamou (Tom Prezman, Tzor Edery), the story of a trans man in 20th century Morocco, and Technology for Talking (Jemima Hughes), celebrating the voices of people with hearing loss, are part of the ‘Body’ program. ‘Mind’, spotlighting films exploring neurodiversity and mental health, includes Daughter (Daria Kashcheeva) an Oscar-nominated film that uses groundbreaking animation techniques to explore a father-daughter relationship.
Cardiff animation studio Cloth Cat Animation has selected two programs of animated short films for children aged 3+ and 7+, including Cats Can’t Swim (HaiLing Morgan) and The Witch and the Baby (Evgenia Golubeva).
CAF will include something for everyone, with short film programs, feature films, masterclasses, workshops, filmmaker Q+As, industry events, panels, networking events and parties. Previous Festival events have included masterclasses and Q&As with key talent behind Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, Aardman’s Early Man, hit preschool show Hey Duggee and Cartoon Saloon’s The Breadwinner; workshops in animation and life drawing, industry panels with TV commissioners, screenwriters, distributors and festivals; and an exhibition of sets and puppets from animated Welsh feature film Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires.
Cardiff Animation Festival 2020 is funded by Ffilm Cymru Wales and Film Hub Wales, as part of the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN) and sponsored by Cloth Cat Animation, Picl Animation and by the ScreenSkills Animation Skills Fund with contributions from U.K. animation productions.
