AFA UK: AniJam, Joanna Quinn, Cardiff Animation Festival and More

Welcome to another edition of AFA UK, our regular round-up of animation goings-on in the United Kingdom.

After a successful first year of its new iteration, it has been announced that Cardiff Animation Festival will return!  According to their latest newsletter (which you should all subscribe to, by the way)  "We're currently looking at dates in MARCH 2020!!! We wanted you to know first, even if the details aren't ironed out just yet, but we'll hopefully be rolling out news and confirmed dates very soon. Watch this space".


AniJam is an annual event in which teams compete to devise and produce an animated short on a set theme in just 48 hours. Having run successfully as part of the Encounters short film festival, this year it has been taken nationwide as part of Anim18. Teams from Bristol, London, Manchester, Cardiff, Belfast, Leicester, York and Glasgow took part with this year's theme being 'Together'. The shorts are now complete and a public vote is underway to pick a winner. Visit the site now to watch the competing films and have your say!

Bee In The City is another art-trail in a similar vein to the Gromit Unleashed trail we covered previously. In this case it's sculptures of Bees,, each decorated by a local artist, that have been placed in locations around Manchester. The trail has an accompanying app created by Mediaworks which features an augmented reality bee named Buzzi, created by local animation studio Factory,. Phil Chalk, Managing Director at Factory, said: "It’s been a great project to work on creating the augmented reality Bee. We have worked with many, much loved characters in our animated series, but this demonstrates the talent and ability of our team, and highlights the quality and flexible production resources that we have."



Acclaimed animator Joanna Quinn (winner of over 90 awards) will be hosting a retrospective evening, screening films and discussing her career. It will take place on September 6 at the Small World Theatre in  Cardigan, Wales. Tickets are £6.00

On September 11, BFI Southbank will host a 'Black British Animators Q & A session with Osbert Parker and other filmmakers, chaired by Jez Stewart, Curator, BFI National Archive.

If you know of any UK animation events for future editions, drop us a line.