Cardiff Animation Festival to launch in April 2018

A brand new dedicated animation festival is coming to Cardiff next year. Cardiff Animation Festival will be held at Chapter and other venues across Cardiff on the 20th, 21st and 22nd April 2018.

The new Cardiff Animation Festival will be run by the team at Cardiff Animation Nights (CAN), who have been running animation events in Cardiff since 2014. The bimonthly Cardiff Animation Nights, which used to take place at 10 Feet Tall, recently moved to Cardiff’s Kongs to accommodate growing audiences for animation in the city.

As well as their bimonthly events, CAN have run a dedicated animation strand at Cardiff Independent Film Festival for the past two years, which has included screenings of animation from around the world and masterclasses with industry greats Joanna Quinn, Peter Lord (Aardman) and Ben Bocquelet (The Amazing World of Gumball).

To give audiences a taste of what Cardiff Animation Festival will have in store, the Cardiff Animation Nights team are bringing two special events to Chapter in Cardiff this summer:

Lotte Reiniger Special / Saturday 24th June / Chapter, Cardiff

A celebration of the work of Lotte Reiniger on Saturday 24th June will include three stand-alone events: an enchanting selection of Reiniger’s short films reimagining classic fairytales in mesmerising silhouette animation; a free interactive shadow puppetry workshop run by Small World Theatre; and a screening of the oldest surviving animated feature film, Lotte Reiniger’s Prince Achmed, with a new original live score by musician Chris Davies.

Late Night Work Club special / Saturday 22nd July / Chapter, Cardiff

International independent animation collective Late Night Work Club released their second collaborative anthology of animated short films, Strangers, late last year. Contribu Nicolas Menard’s SXSW award-winning ‘Wednesday with Goddard’ and Kirsten Lepore’s viral hit ‘Hi Stranger’. The event will give audiences the chance to see the animated anthologies on the big screen, and will include a masterclass with Late Night Work Club members about online collaboration and how to survive and thrive as an independent animator. The event will celebrate collaboration, with attendees invited to bring along their own personal projects, and get involved in a collaborative animation produced on the day.

Tickets for the Lotte Reiniger events are on sale now, on Chapter’s website at https://www.chapter.org/season/cardiff-animation-nights-cardiff-animation-festival-2018-tasters, or Chapter’s Box Office on +44 (0)29 2030 4400.

Tickets for the Late Night Work Club special will be on sale soon; follow Cardiff Animation Nights on Twitter (twitter.com/animationnights), Facebook (facebook.com/cardiffanimation) and Instagram (instagram.com/animationnights) or sign up to their mailing list (cardiffanimation.com/contact) for information on these events and updates on Cardiff Animation Festival 2018.