Marilyn Myller wins the 24th McLaren Award at EIFF
The 67th Edinburgh International Film Festival took place in the Scottish capital between the 19th and 30th of June and attracted stars from TV, Film and theatre. As well as catering to filmmakers from an international level the festival also has a concentration on animation of which the prestigious McLaren award has been presented to the best British Animation since 1990 and is the longest running award celebrating creativity amongst UK animation talent. To present the award was master animator Richard Williams who was delivering a retrospective of his own work at the festival.
Richard Williams presents the 24th McLaren Award to Mikey Please (Amy Muir/EIFF)
Previous winners of the award include Suzie Templeton, Peter Peake, Daniel Greaves, Run Wrake and Will Anderson who form part of a list that is populated with some of the landmark films in recent UK animation history.
The selection in this years category was an excellent collection of the coming years most innovative, boldest and brightest shorts from both recent graduates as well as BAFTA winners and more established talent with many world premieres and UK premieres taking up the majority of the schedule, there was a real “you saw it here first” quality to the work.
Some of the directors, producers and writers from the first McLaren screening programme (Photo: EIFF)
Just a few of my personal highlights from the screenings included In the Air is Christopher Gray by Felix Massie, The Hungry Corpse by Gergely Wootsch, Peter Baynton’s The Lion and Ross Butters I Love You So Hard. However, you could have picked any from the screenings really with few exceptions.
Directors, Producers and writers from the second McLaren screening programme (Photo: EIFF)
The winner of the 24th McLaren award for Best British animation was Mikey Pleases film Marilyn Myller, a film which not only seemed to blow the mind of Richard Williams but also the rest of the audience. The awards audience were treated to a clip from the 1st minute of the film that manages to effortlessly top his previous film. Speaking very highly of the film Richard Williams announced that Norman McLaren, the Scottish born NFB animator would have loved the film whilst declaring his own love for it. High praise indeed! The film had its world premier in Edinburgh and found itself scooping its first award, surely a sign of things to come. Mikey Please said
The team and I are absolutely thrilled to receive the prestigious McLaren Award. We hope that our gonzo, the-rules-are-there-to-break-them approach to filmmaking was very much in a spirit that would have made Norman proud. This was Marilyn’s World premiere, so naturally we were very nervous about how she’d be received. To have the warm welcome of an audience vote is wonderful, the best result we could have possibly hoped for.
Marilyn Myller, winner of the 24th McLaren award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
Next year the 25th recipient of the award will be announced which will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Norman McLarens birth which should prove a rather prestigious focus for both the animation of Scotland’s foremost animation legend and British Animation itself.