Animations at Leeds IFF

Here are a few of the fantastic shorts that screened at the World Animation Competition at Leeds IFF earlier this month. Firstly the films the my co-jurors animators Alice Dunseath and Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara and I selected…

Special mentions

It would piss me off to die so yoooooung… by Filipe Abranches (Portugal) 

“A stunning, hallucinatory animation filled with hand drawn lines swirling evocatively to conjure the suffocating environment of the trenches of WWI. (And a much more considered film than the title suggests).”

Sore eyes for infinity by Elli Vuorinen (Finland)

“A beautiful and surreal world of strange characters whose perceptions are changed through their encounters with a world-weary optician. Gorgeous colour palette and character design compliment the smart storytelling.”

Winner – Wicked Girl by Ayce Kartal (Turkey)

“For its inventive use of visual storytelling to portray a challenging theme. The maker combines the peculiar speech of an innocent 8 year old child with truly exquisite illustrations to reveal a dark and traumatic story.”

I also really enjoyed these shorts from the competition: Sog (Jonatan Schwenk, Germany) a hybrid stop motion and CG short exploring cruel behaviour towards outsiders; the folkloric, hand crafted 2D tale of Among the Black Waves (Anna Budanova, Russia); the atmospheric stop motion short Nocturne (Anne Breymann, Germany); The Full Story (Daisy Jacobs & Christopher Wilder, UK), the latest life size animation on family relationships from animator Daisy Jacobs; and The Escape (Jaroslaw Konopka, Poland), a harrowing stop motion short following a traumatised family that is superbly shot and animated.