London International Animation Festival kicks

The London International Animation Festival - LIAF - runs from next Monday for a whole week (1 - 7 September), and last night we popped along to their launch screening. We are thrilled that all the AnimateTV 2007 films have been selected - you can read short essays on each of them at animateprojects.org. And Animate's friend Jonathan Hodgson is a guest, with a q&a session on Saturday.

Our favourites from last night were the excellent and award winning Skhizein by Jeremy Clapin from France -a sad-man-in-a-room films that transcends the cliche with its poignant metaphor for madness. And  Jesse Rosensweet's brilliant, Paradise, a National Film Board of Canada funded film, featuring tin toy characters with frozen expressions and cold, bleak lives. 

Image: Francis, Let Me Feel Your Finger First

AnimateTV - new films

The seven films commissioned a year ago for AnimateTV 2008 are all delivered, and we've been filming interviews the artists for the AnimateTV programme. This usually goes out in December, but it's got an earlier slot - in September - around about the time that Channel 4 launches its new website, 4mations.tv. So it's been a busy time putting the programme together for the tighter deadline...but we're just about there...

There's information about the new films at animateprojects.org. The films and interviews will probably be online towards the end of October. And we've got 'live' launches - showing the films, and artist q&a's - in November/December at Aurora (Norwich), Encounters at Arnolfini (Bristol), FACT Liverpool and Tate Modern. Dates confirmed when they're confirmed...

Image: Early Birds, Suky Best

AnimateTV 2009 Selection

The deadline for proposals for our new commissions for Channel 4 was 31 July. We got 131 submissions, and we're now in the middle of the selection process. We've got a shortlist of 20, and the advisory panel meets up at the beginning of September. We'll let you know how that goes...

Sending rejections is the least fun part, though we know it's worse getting them.  

Blog Number One

We've been going for over a year now, so this blog is overdue...

On animateprojects.org and in  our regular newsletter (subscribe here) we'll continue to feature our films, production materials, interviews, etc, and information about our commissioning and other activity. On the blog, we'll be posting about other news, about things we like, opinion, and other more random things. 

We also hope that the blog is where people will get in touch, contribute comments, made suggestions, ask questions, have a conversation...

One of the things we decided when we put the back catalogue online last year was to NOT invite comments on the films. The main website isn't an open thing like Vimeo or the BBC Network - we commissioned those films, and worked closely with the people who made them. We respect them, and though we're not afraid of criticism, we don't think it should be in the same space we're showing the work.