Figures in Focus: Skin Shows at LIAF 2025
Join us for Figures in Focus: Skin Shows at the Barbican on Saturday 29 November. Tickets can be found here.
With this edition of Figures in Focus, the title ‘Skin Shows’ is a nod to Jack Halberstam ’s excellent book of the same name; a work that explores gothic horror, monstrousness, corporeality, otherness, and its representation in contemporary film. In this programme, the perception of the female body as grotesque, abject, and perverse is explored. These films show that getting under the skin of this conceit can be empowering rather than horrifying. Come delight at the myriad ways in which these animators lay bare sexuality, queerness and the body on screen.
The screening will be followed with a discussion with featured filmmakers: May Kindred Boothby, Lizzie Watts, and Dr Laura-Beth Cowley.
Figures in Focus was devised in 2017 in recognition of the under-representation of female and non-binary animators and their stories within the independent animation sector. The programme spotlights some of the incredible work crafted by contemporary animators, both in the UK and internationally.
Running order (c. 82 minutes):
– La Fée des Roberts (The Boob Fairy), Léahn Vivier-Chapas, France, 14 min, 2021
– The Eating of an Orange, May Kindred-Boothby, UK, 7min, 2024
– Hairy Legs, Andrea Dorfman, Canada, 17 min, 2024
– The Gift, Laura-Beth Cowley, UK, 3, 2019
– Gakjil (Persona), Sujin Moon, South Korea, 6 min, 2022
– Summer’s Puke is Winter’s Delight, Sawako Kabuki, Japan, 3, 2016
– Glazing, Lilli Carré, USA, 2 min, 2021
– FRIED!, Lizzie Watts, UK, 10, 2025
– Y, Matea Kovač, Croatia, 7, 2023
– upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, Rachel MacLean, UK, 12, 2021
Content warning: Nudity, graphic sexual imagery, sexual assault, violence, blood, death, animal cruelty, vomiting, eating disorders, anxiety, needles, flashing imagery.
Image: Summer’s Puke is Winter’s Delight, Sawako Kabuki.