Manchester Animation Festival: five must-see films

Manchester Animation Festival is back after a hugely successful first year. We pick out a few must see films from its bursting programme

Feature by Jamie Dunn | 10 Nov 2016

Over three jam-packed days, Manchester Animation Festival (15-17 Nov) offers up a snapshot of the creativity going on in the world of animation right now, as well as celebrating the careers of some of the filmmakers who’ve been pushing the medium forward over the last few decades.

We’d encourage you to dip into the various short film programmes in the festival as well as the career retrospectives of master animators like Hungarian experimentalist György Kovásznai and British absurdist Chris Shepard. There’s also talks, workshops and masterclasses from some of the sharpest animators in the business. Below, however, are the five films we think you’d be mad to miss.

My Life as a Courgette

We’ve heard great things about this French animation, which tells the story of a troubled nine-year-old’s life in an orphanage following the death of his alcoholic mother. From the clips we’ve seen, Claude Barras’ brightly coloured stop motion creations looks gorgeous, but what makes us especially interested in My Life as a Courgette is that it’s written by Celine Sciamma. With her tender live action films Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood, the French writer-director has proved herself an acute observer of adolescent turmoil, so we’re expecting emotions to run deep here.

Tue 15 Nov, 4.45pm

40 Years of Aardman

Aardman, home of Wallace and Gromit, Morph and Shawn the Sheep, are being royally celebrated at this year’s Manchester Animation Festival. Beginning with the studio’s crude first cel animation following an inept superhero, this retrospective programme takes in Stephen R. Johnson’s wildly inventive music video for Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, Nick Park’s sublime Creature Comforts, Peter Lord’s romp through the creation myth with Adam and closes with The Wrong Trousers, Nick Park’s hilarious and action-packed Oscar-winning short. Aardman’s founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, will be presented with a MAF Fellowship Award before the Tue 15 Nov screening.

Tue 15 Nov, 8.20pm / Thu 17 Nov, 7.45pm

Clash of the Titans

Aardman aren't the only stop motion masters being celebrated at MAF. This screening of Desmond Davis's kitschy Greek myth saga from 1981 pays tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the stop motion genius who brought this tale’s various Gorgons, Hell Hounds and, of course, the mighty Kraken to life. You’ve probably seen it dozens of times on TV during wet weekends, but this rare big screen outing on 35mm is not to be missed. To find out more about Ray Harryhausen, head to the panel with John Walsh and Connor Heaney who present a look at the animator’s ‘lost treasures’ on Thu 17 Nov.

Thu 17 Nov, 11.20am

The Red Turtle

Celebrated Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit joins forces with Studio Ghibli (this is the Japanese anime giant’s first international co-production) for this dialogue-free story about a shipwrecked man’s journey for survival. All reports suggest it’s sublime. Variety called it “a fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years.”

Thu 17 Nov, 6.15pm

Under the Apple Tree

We’re sure there are plenty of short film gems to discover in MAF’s various short film programmes, but from the trailer alone we’re dying to see this macabre little horror-comedy from Dutch animator Erik van Schaaik. It’s basically a zombie movie, but instead of voodoo magic, chemical waste or some rage virus, the dead begins to rise when some earthworms take over the corpse of a sleepy town’s vicar after he’s been laid to rest. Van Schaaik is reportedly working on his feature debut – check out his work before everyone’s talking about him.

Screening in Shorts 2: Tue 15 Nov, 6.40pm / Wed 16 Nov, 1.40pm / 17 Nov, 10.10am


Manchester Animation Festival runs 15-17 Nov at HOME, Manchester

For full programme listings, go to manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk