Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival Announce Joint Event
If there can be said to be any silver linings to what has happened in the past 12 months, the way that the animation community has managed to bring people together (virtually, in a socially-distanced way, of course) has to be right up there. Cardiff Animation Festival was one of the events cancelled last year that managed to transition successfully to a virtual iteration. This year CAF is teaming up with an animation festival on the other side of the world to celebrate the animation coming out of both countries and around the world.
Cardiff Animation Festival is teaming up with South Africa's Cape Town International Animation Festival to launch a week-long online festival featuring a curated line-up of shorts, workshops and live Q&A sessions, supported by the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund.
The shorts are selected to represent the best of both Welsh and African animation, and will be selected from films that have screened at either CTIAF or CAF in the past five years. The films will be presented as two separate screenings. They will be available to watch at any time throughout the festival from Monday, April 12- Sunday, April 18, but there will also be a chance to have a more communal feeling with live watch parties, where audiences can contribute to the live chat.
There will also be an in-person screening in Cape Town with a screening at the Go Drive-In Cinema in Salt River, giving South African audiences a chance to watch the films (safely) on the big screen.
Outside of the shorts, there will be a live Q&A session with UK animation legend Joanna Quinn and screenwriter and producer Les Mills as they discuss their careers and give audiences a behind-the-scenes look at their brand new short film Affairs Of The Art.
African filmmaker Lesego Vorster and producer Dianne Makings will discuss the challenges in making Africa-specific stories that are accessible to a global audience, and share several projects that they hope will manage to pull it off. Independent African filmmaker Naomi van Niekerk and established storyboard artist Kay Carmicheal, who is currently producing her own short film Troll Girl will discuss the highs and lows of indie animation in a live Q&A.
There will be family-friendly events throughout the festival including a stop-motion workshop with African animator Dina A. Amin and Welsh animator Efa Blosse-Mason will teach 2D paper cut-out techniques and short film making. CTIAF and CAF have also teamed up to create an hour-long program of shorts suitable for the whole family, featuring shorts from both countries.
Tickets are now on sale.
