Tickets are now available for the recently announced online collaboration between Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival, running Monday 12th of April – Sunday 18th of April.
Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival have announced an exciting collaboration, celebrating animation in both Wales and South Africa with a week-long online festival including curated shorts screenings, workshops and live Q&As. The festival is supported by the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund, which encourages UK and overseas cultural partnerships to develop digitally innovative ways of collaborating.
“Wales has a long history of creating original IP animation content, whereas South Africa has only just transitioned from a service industry to creating our own IP,” said Dianne Makings, Festival Director of Cape Town International Animation Festival. “The collaboration of festivals is an opportunity for studios and independent filmmakers to exchange ideas around business and art.”
The two festivals are brought together through brand new poster artwork created by animator and illustrator Becky Peel; the delightful and colourful characters of her Cardiff Animation Festival 2020 poster are connected brought through a magical portal to behold the natural beauty of South Africa’s Table Mountain.
The collaborative festival will showcase Welsh and African animated shorts, previously screened at Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival events across the past five years, in two curated screenings. The collection features unique art, heart-warming stories, experimental animation and a variety of disciplines. The screenings will be available to watch anytime during the festival from Monday 12th – Sunday 18th of April, as well as being shown in live watch parties where audiences can watch together, give a round of applause and socialise in the live chat. In South Africa, there will also be an opportunity to view the shorts screening at the Go Drive-In Cinema in Salt River, giving audiences in Cape Town a chance to watch the shorts on the big screen outdoors.
Joining the festival from Wales will be director and animator Joanna Quinn and screenwriter and producer Les Mills in conversation with producer Helen Brunsdon, as they take audiences behind the scenes of their brand new award-winning short film ‘Affairs of the Art’, discuss independent filmmaking in Wales, look back at their journey in animation and answer audience questions in a live Q&A.
Filmmaker Lesego Vorster discusses the challenges of creating African specific stories while remaining accessible to global audiences. In conversation with producer Dianne Makings, Vorster will share several personal projects which aim to achieve that.
Independent filmmaking is equally rewarding and challenging; from South Africa, award-winning independent filmmaker Naomi van Niekerk and sought-after storyboard artist Kay Carmichael will discuss the highs and lows of projects, what personally motivates them to continue to make art and what inspires them, in a live discussion and Q&A.
A range of family-friendly events will run throughout the festival, including two animation workshops; African stop-motion artist Dina A. Amin will be teaching families how to animate together at home using everyday household items, and Welsh filmmaker Efa Blosse-Mason will be exploring 2D paper cut out techniques and how to create a short animation.
The Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival teams have also worked together to curate an exciting hour-long screening of animated shorts suitable for the whole family, showcasing some of the best family-friendly films from both nations.
Individual tickets for each event and screening are on sale now. Tickets for the Go Drive-In Cinema will be on sale on the Webtickets platform.
For more information on Cardiff Animation Festival, visit their website here. To keep up to date, follow Cardiff Animation Festival on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and Cape Town International Animation Festival on Facebook and Twitter, using #CAFxCTIAF and #DigitalCollaborationFund.
Header image: ‘Belly Flop’ directed by Jeremy Collins and Kelly Dillon (Cardiff Animation Festival and Cape Town International Animation Festival Collaboration).