Manchester Animation Festival 2017 at HOME

Manchester Animation Festival welcomes fans, industry-professionals and enthusiastic amateurs for a another packed, three-days celebration of all things animated. Featuring panel discussions, preview screenings, family events, industry masterclasses and more short films than you can shake a stick at – there’s something for everyone in the festival’s 2017 line-up.

This year’s Fellowship Award honours writer, producer and showrunner, Josh Weinstein. Weinstein is currently working with Matt Groening on the new show Disenchantment, but his credits also include Danger Mouse, Strange Hill High and a little show called The Simpsons. Other animation world heavy-hitters in attendance include Aardman Animation’s Will Becher, who arrives fresh from his stint as Animation Director on the hotly anticipated Nick Park film Early Man to present a masterclass on how the famed studio builds its varied worlds.

Also at the festival is Mark Mullery, Technical Director of acclaimed new film The Breadwinner – in which headstrong young girl in Afghanistan disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family – who will present a masterclass alongside a preview screening. Whilst the directors of Loving Vincent will be around to present their new film and discuss how they went about bringing Vincent Van Gogh to life using a staggering 65,000 oil paintings.

At Creative Tourist, we were especially excited to learn that Don Hertzfelt’s (It’s Such a Beautiful Day) new short film, World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts is set to screen in a double bill alongside 2015’s World of Tomorrow. Fans familiar with Hertzfelt’s work – a stunning mix of intelligent high-concept science fiction and brutally intimate existentialism – will want to grab their tickets for this one as soon as possible.

The great thing about Manchester Animation Festival is that it caters to all needs. If you’d like then it’s perfectly possible to dip your toe into some of the short film programmes on offer or sneak a look at a new feature-length film in one of the previews. Alternatively you can immerse yourself in animation for three days and soak up wisdom in the masterclasses and workshops, survey the state of the artform across the many screenings and make friends at the specially produced Skwigly quiz night.