-
![Image from The Miners's Story (BBC)]()
The Miners’ Hymns UK Tour
For the past six months I have been working with interdisciplinary arts agency Forma on touring The Miners’ Hymns, a film by American artist Bill Morrison with an original score by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. The work is composed of archival footage of the Durham coalfield over the past 100 years, assembled with recent footage…
-
![Liars - Brats © Ian Cheng]()
Changing Nature screening
After presenting a screening at the Austrian Culture Forum last spring on transformations in animation, I’m pleased to have been invited back this year to present another screening of work selected from the annual Ars Electronica animation festival. Changing Nature is a selection of films that explore our relationship with natural forms and the natural…
-
![Yamasuki Yamazaki, Shishi Yamazaki]()
Top 10 animations of 2013
Below are 10 films that I believe shows 2013 to have been a great year for animated film. As the majority of work I watch at festivals and online tends to be animation, I‘m keeping strictly to the medium with my review of the year and am avoiding straying into the realms of artists’ film…
-
![Join the Freedom Force © Martha Colburn]()
Presenting God’s special envoys online
Earlier this month I produced a film programme for the University of Iowa’s Exuberant Politics season, which screened at Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids on 2 December, then at the University the next night. For everyone who isn’t based in Iowa, here’s an online exhibition of the screening programme. Introduction The selection highlights the horrors…
-
![Bear Trap (film still) © Ceara McEvoy]()
Ones to watch: girls making films
Having see some incredible shorts at Underwire Festival over the past few days, and spoken with some ambitious and intelligent women about their work, I thought I would just mention a few of the films that made me feel proud of the work being produced by talented females in the UK. Look out for these…
-
![Sounding Glass © Sylvia Schedelbauer]()
God’s special envoys in Iowa
I’m thrilled to have curated a film programme for the University of Iowa’s Exuberant Politics season. If you happen to be in the neighbourhood it screens on Tuesday 3 December at 8pm at the University’s Pappajohn Business Building. God’s special envoys highlights the horrors of conflict in a collective call to peace. Presenting images of the…
-
![We Are Not Amused © Vicki Bennett]()
Underwire Festival 2013
It’s almost time for the fourth Underwire Film Festival, showcasing the best new female talent in the UK film industry. As someone lucky enough to be on the advisory board for the festival, I’m thrilled to see so many inspiring discussions and remarkable short films that the festival has to offer. Here are my highlight…
-
![Anomalies © Atsushi Wada]()
Secret Monsters discovered
I’m delighted to be able share the ten beastly films that I curated and produced for Animate Projects for Channel 4’s Random Acts series: they are now all up online for all to see. These Secret Monsters are a diverse array of films from a fantastic selection of contemporary artists working with animation. During the…
-
![Self Portrait with Fried Eggs © Sarah Lucas]()
London galleries celebrating female talent
I’ve recently visited three exhibitions that put women artists at the centre stage and present challenging ideas about what it is to be female. Sarah Lucas at the Whitechapel Truly one of the most important artists of her generation. Why she never rose to the prominence of her peers Damian Hirst and Tracey Emin is…
-
![Animation Sketchbooks]()
Animation Sketchbooks
Published earlier this year, Animation Sketchbooks is a welcome anthology for anyone who is curious about the painstaking process that goes in to producing animations. It’s a lavish, weighty tome, with 320 pages, which are for the most part elaborately illustrated by the 52 animation artists that grace its pages. It’s as fantastically visual as…
-
![A Short Film About War, Thomson & Craighead]()
My exuberant, political programme
I am excited to announce that in December the University of Iowa will be screening a film programme that I have curated for their Exuberant Politics programme – a year long initiative that celebrates “recent intersections of art and activism in the US”.
-
![Screenshot of campfilms.co.uk]()
CAMP Films
I am delighted to share the new website that I have produced for Cannon and Morley Productions (CAMP). If you visit campfilms.co.uk you can discover CAMP’s catalogue of fantastic and somewhat anarchic films made by Carol Morley and Cairo Cannon, which includes Dreams of a Life, The Madness of the Dance and The Alcohol Years.
-
![Of Monsters and Men: Little Talks, directed by WeWereMonkeys]()
Transformations from Ars Electronica
Earlier this year I was lucky to be invited by the Austrian Culture Forum London to select and present a programme of films from the Ars Electronica 2012 festival programme. Ars Electronica is one of the top festivals for animation with a focus on how art, technology and society intersect, is based in Linz in…
-
![Sun City by Rob Carter, single channel HD video, 2013]()
LOOP Barcelona 2013: My selected 5
I’m back from a few sun-filled days spent looking at artists’ moving image at LOOP Barcelona. It was my first visit to LOOP and I imagine that it won’t be my last. From the 44 international galleries that participated this year, here are five works that I felt stood out from the gamut of experimental,…
-
![Bendito Machine IV, Jossie Malis]()
The best online videos in 2012
Sight & Sound have once again posted online the year’s best online videos, as selected by 16 ‘international correspondents’ (including yours truly) from various regions of the film world (critics, programmers, producers). It’s terrific that Sight & Sound publish this list every year, as there are always videos and interactive sites that have slipped under…
-
![Exibison by Marielle Tollis]()
Electrifying animated work and the making of…
This month I’m taking part in two events where I’ll be talking about great contemporary animation and profiling the work and careers of young animation professionals. Living your life at 25 frames per second panel discussion First up, I’ll be at the BFI Future Film Festival on Sunday 17 February. The FFF is a festival…
-
![Beluga © Shin Hashimoto]()
Nightmares: three films
Cold and gloomy January is a fitting month to focus on bad dreams. As paranoid classic Rosemary’s Baby plays at the BFI Southbank and the delightfully morbid exhibition Death: A Self Portrait shows at the Wellcome Collection, my mind turns to some recent work I’ve seen. Beluga, Shin Hashimoto, 2012 A dark retelling of the Little…
-
![]()
The curse of the demon creature
I recently had the pleasure of organising a writing workshop for Animate. One of the perks of producing the event was that I too was invited to take part and have a crack at penning something. Using Billy Burrough’s cut up technique, and pages from my favourite copyright free novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a recent news item about…
-
![lotte reiniger]()
Don’t kill your babies
Underwire Festival has taken on the mantle of championing female talent. As a festival it’s young, self-assured and more renegade than those who have come before it. It gives firm support: sharing careers advice in forums across the country, keeping the community updated about the careers of previous festival winners on the website, and running an…
-
![Liz Green: Displacement Song © Kate Anderson]()
Giving Life to Stills
I am delighted to be presenting a panel celebrating animated shorts made by women with several lovely lady animators at Underwire Festival, at the Ritzy in Brixton on Saturday 24 November at 12.30pm. I’ve assembled a great panel of awe-inspiring animators who work across animated documentary, fine art film, music videos, art education and kids tv…
