Animation Festival Research

With my time on MA Character Animation coming to a close, and my graduation film nearly complete, it’s time for me to start looking into animation festivals and where I can potentially submit my film.

FilmFreeway is probably my starting point for this. As recommended by classmates and tutors alike, its a hub where you can upload your project and submit to lots of festivals in one go, like a central hub of the festival circuit.

Having worked for LIAF in our 1st year stings, I’m a lot more familiar with the categories that I can submit to. Seeing as my animation is a reflection upon childhood days exaggerated, I could see myself submitting this under the categories of Being Human and From Absurd to Zany.

I recently became aware of the Brighton International Animation Festival, which is run by one of our guest lecturers Kate Jessop. A two-day festival, it has its own TV channel which it screens to 350,000 households. There is a student film category which I could submit this film to, seeing as this falls under my last student film that I’ll be making. And as an event which seems like its socially networking, it’d be great to submit to. Looking at where some of my peers from the year above submitted to, I’d be interested in submitting to the London Short Film Festival (January 2024) and Manchester Animation Festival (taking place in November 2023) as places I could possibly travel to and connect.

Sadly, Annecy is scheduled close to the end of our project, so I’ve missed the deadline for this year’s festival. I’ll be keeping an eye out for next year and see how my film does on the festival circuit by then. I’ll be looking into travel grants and funding if I do apply for more international festivals, but UK based festivals are my priority for now. I’ll likely update this blogpost as I look further into the festival circuit.