Full programme announced for Cardiff Animation Festival 2020 Online

Cardiff Animation Festival has announced their full online festival programme. The festival has added further announcements to their exciting 2020 line-up, including masterclasses and Q+As with key talent behind The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Strike and The Adventures of Paddington™. The online celebration of animation for everyone will showcase some of the best animation from all over the world for adults, families and filmmakers.

The rescheduled spring 2020 festival will now run online, with events starting 17th October, building towards the main festival week 24th October - 1st November. Tickets for individual events are now on sale, and Early Bird passes are available for £15 per pass.

Festival Director Lauren Orme says: “We’re so proud of this programme and thrilled to finally be bringing it to audiences! This has been a difficult year for everyone and it was really important to us to be able to offer passes at such a reduced price and individual tickets on a pay-what-you-can basis, so as many people as possible can access the festival. The online format has also enabled us to subtitle all our events to make everything even more accessible which is really exciting.”

A range of family-friendly events will run throughout the festival, including an incredible chance to see behind-the-scenes of the brand new CGI series The Adventures of Paddington™ by Blue Zoo Animation for StudioCanal & Nickelodeon, presented by Producer Simon Quinn.

Ed Foster, creator of Illuminated Films’ hit animated CITV comedy The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, will tell the story of his 16-year journey from student film to directing his own series, and the origins of underdog, unlikely hero and unwitting creator of chaos Dave Spud and his family. With a voice cast featuring Gina Yashere and Johnny Vegas, and animation by Cardiff’s Cloth Cat Animation, the show’s ratings have been far from rubbish since its launch last September and it’s now in production for its second series.

The programme includes British stop-motion feature film Strike, a story of a young mole trying to achieve his impossible dream of becoming a footballer to save his hometown from a greedy supervillain. The film is Sussex-based Trevor Hardy’s first feature, produced by Gigglefish Studios. After the film screening audiences can go behind-the-scenes with an engaging Q+A with the film's director Trevor Hardy, voice actor Lizzie Waterworth and producer Neil James exploring the unique way recycling helped to bring the film to life, chaired by Suraya Raja.

The festival is teaming up with Visible in Visuals, a platform aiming to make animation and VFX more inclusive, for a panel and Q+A focusing on different careers in animation and advice for students and those looking to get into the industry.

These events and many more add to an already spectacular line-up, including masterclasses on directing Bob’s Burgers with Welsh animator Simon Chong, Moominvalley with episode director Avgousta Zourelidi, the world’s first sand animated feature film Heart of Darkness currently being made in Wales by director Gerald Conn.

Festival-goers will be able to come together for live watch parties of the seven themed programmes of the festival’s favourite new animated shorts from around the world, swapping rounds of applause in the cinema for clapping emojis in the live chat, and voting for their favourites to win the CAF Audience Award. There will be a chance to meet some of the brilliant independent filmmakers behind the films in competition at Animators Brunch, live Q+As hosted by Skwigly’s Ben Mitchell and Laura-Beth Cowley on Sunday 25th October and Sunday 1st November.

Cardiff Animation Festival is funded by Arts Council Wales, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Film Hub Wales as part of the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN), BFI NETWORK Wales, and Ymddiried through the Owen Edwards Scholarship Fund, and sponsored by Cloth Cat Animation, Picl Animation, Creative Europe Desk UK – Wales, the University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Jammy Custard Animation, the British Animation Awards, S4C and by the ScreenSkills Animation Skills Fund with contributions from UK animation productions.