BAA Regional Focus – Cardiff and Wales
In the first of a series of regional spotlights to mark the British Animation Awards’ first satellite events taking place across the country, we’re taking a look at the thriving Welsh animated industry scene and celebrating projects to watch out for from the region.
To get a true sense of the community spirit of Cardiff’s animation industry you need look no further than the long-running Cardiff Animation Nights (CAN), helmed by Lauren Orme since 2014 and a consistently popular excuse for locals to keep abreast of the latest standouts of the contemporary animation shorts landscape whilst knocking back a beverage or several. The culmination of the team’s efforts has been the Cardiff Animation Festival, a biennial event that kicked off in 2018 whose second edition proved one of the first national casualties of the 2020 lockdown. Reshaping itself on the fly into a successful global online festival experience that would take place in October of that year, with its themed competition programme eventually screening throughout 2021 once restrictions had been eased, the festival will be embracing the hybrid format for this year’s upcoming and much-anticipated third edition. In a similar fashion CAN has adapted to the fluctuating circumstances by keeping its community spirit alive through their online programmes that have continued to run in tandem with the now-resumed physical events, as well as such initiatives as the 48-hour animation challenge Cardiff Quickdraw and hosting this year’s British Animation Awards local live-streamed event at Chapter Arts.
An accomplished filmmaker in her own right, CAF director Orme’s recently-formed Picl Animation has also proved a valuable addition to the local studio landscape, sharing the festival’s social and ecological values (earning them B-Corp certification this past December) and producing notable projects out of the gate such as a recent seasonal promo short/idents Nadolig Llawen for S4C with JM Creative and the upcoming Beacons/BFI Network-funded short film The Hounds of Annwyn (dir. Beth Hughes/Bryony Evans) on the heels of Orme’s own BAFTA shortlisted/BAFTA Cymru-nominated Creepy Pasta Salad, produced by Winding Snake Productions.
Since this collaboration Winding Snake themselves have continued a streak of visually compelling short film work with projects including the BAA 2022 Audience Award contender Cwch Deilen/Leaf Boat (dir. Efa Blosse Mason), the Arts Council of Wales-supported A Moment Longer (dir. Nia Morris/Efa Blosse-Mason) and the upcoming, crowdfunded Marmalade is Missing (dir. James Nutting).
Very few films have been as eagerly anticipated as Joanna Quinn and Les Mills (collectively Beryl Productions International Ltd)’s return to the medium – and their beloved Beryl character who has taken centre stage in such classic shorts as Girls Night Out, Body Beautiful and 2008 BAA Public Choice winner Dreams and Desires – Family Ties. The long-gestating (perhaps final) entry Affairs of the Art, having been helped across the finish line by a later-stage partnership with the National Film Board of Canada, was released to vigorous enthusiasm last year and took the festival world, predictably, by storm. The warmth of its reception is reflected by no less than three BAA nominations – Best Short Film, Best Writer (Les Mills) and Best Voice Performance (Menna Trussler) – not to mention being in the running for an Academy Award.
Alongside a steady stream of projects spanning short films, games, brand expansions and several exciting projects in-development, Cloth Cat Animation has been flying pretty high with the respective successes of their ongoing series Luo Bao Bei (produced with Magic Mall and 9 Story Media Group) and The Rubbish World of Dave Spud (with Illuminated Film Company), which sees itself thrice nominated at this year’s BAAs for Best Sound (Ed Foster, Burning Wheels) as well as the Writers Award (Madeleine Brettingham, Twinfestation) with series animator Teifi Cadwallader among the BAA Lamb Award contenders.
Elsewhere in Cardiff are a number of outfits worth mentioning for their creative approaches to commercial work and creating animation for local organisations and brands, such as Jammy Custard, Yoke Creative and Tiny Wizard. Beyond its capital city, however, Wales has been no slouch on the animation front, with this year seeing the long-awaited release of Animortal’s Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires (dir. Mike Mort), an independent stop-motion feature building on the 2013 short Raging Balls of Steel Justice with staggeringly high animation quality and production values, made in a snoozy corner of Bridgend. Over in Caerphilly the production house Bomper Studio has been responsible for some particularly impressive commercial animated content, among which being Emlyn Davies and Josh Hicks’s recent Foo Fighters music videos No Son of Mine and Chasing Birds, the latter in contention for Best Music Video at this year’s BAAs.
Those local to the city but unable to make the trip to London will be able to experience the live BAA ceremony on the night at a special signal event hosted by Cardiff Animation Nights at the festival’s main venue Chapter. With support from Creative Wales and Cloth Cat Animation, the evening’s festivities will be live-streamed from BFI Southbank in London to those in attendance who will be able to celebrate locally and network beforehand from 6:30pm.
For tickets and further information click here.