London’s fifth annual Factual Animation Film Festival was hosted at the Cinema Museum on 8th December 2019. 21 short animated documentaries were screened across two programmes. Between the screenings there was a discussion panel featuring Rory Waubly-Tolley, director of There’s Something In The Water, Diana Gradinaru, director of What Is Consciousness?, Simon Ball, director of Do I See What You See?, and Haemin Ko, director of No Body.
The AnimatedDocumentary.com team are delighted to announce that the FAFF best animated documentary of 2019 has been awarded to Rosa Fisher director of Sent Away.
Sent Away explores the psychological impact that attending boarding school had on Rosa’s father, Tom. The film addresses the atmosphere of punishment, obedience and isolation that led each pupil to develop a hardened exterior. The film concludes by speculating how this emotionally traumatic cultural practice, common among Britain’s political elite, has shaped the UK. Sent Away, despite focusing on the childhood of a middle-aged man, is prescient in the lead up to the UK’s general election. One of the candidates for prime minister forged his identity in the competitive toxicity of Eton, the UK’s most elite boarding school. The other did not.
FAFF was organised by festival director, Daniel Murtha, with help from Marina Belikova, project leader for FAFF Berlin, and me, Alex Widdowson, panel host.
| FAFF 2019 Programme | |||||||
| Programme 1, 12pm | |||||||
| 1 | There’s Something In The Water | 7 | Dinosaur Blues | ||||
| dir Rory Waudby-Tolley | 2019 | UK | dir Oleon Lin | 2019 | China | ||
| There are two types of lakes in the South: them that’s got giant salvinia, and them that’s about to. | In urban China, a man makes plasticine figures of popular characters. | ||||||
| 2 | No Body | 8 | What Is Consciousness? | ||||
| dir Haemin Ko | 2019 | UK | dir Diana Gradinaru | 2019 | UK, Romania | ||
| An autobiographical experimental animated poem on the director’s immigrant experience. | Classic cartoon tropes are manipulated in this nightmarish story about memory. | ||||||
| 3 | Passage | 9 | Do I See What You See? | ||||
| dir Asavari Kumar | 2019 | USA, India | dir Simon Ball | 2018 | UK | ||
| An Indian woman revisits her immigration journey through the illusion of the American Dream. | How do changes in the brain cause us to see differently? | ||||||
| 4 | A Letter To Myself At 16 | 10 | Patchwork | ||||
| dir Claire Tankersley | 2019 | USA | dir Maria Manero | 2018 | Spain | ||
| Five years after her sexual assault, there is so much that she wishes she’d known when she woke up the next morning. | The story of a 60 year-old woman’s liver transplant, as told by her donor. | ||||||
| 5 | Embraces & The Touch of Skin | 11 | Solos | ||||
| dir Sara Koppel | 2019 | Denmark | dir Gabriella Marsh | 2019 | UK | ||
| An animated poem about the vital need for embraces and contact with other beings. | A portrait of a day in a single square in Barcelona. | ||||||
| 6 | My Dad’s Name Was Huw | ||||||
| dir Freddie Griffiths | 2019 | UK | |||||
| Freddie’s late alcoholic father left behind a number of poems through which we might understand his experience. |
| FAFF 2019 Programme | |||||||
| Programme 2, 2pm | |||||||
| 1 | Bloomers | 6 | Gambler | ||||
| dir Samantha Moore | 2019 | UK | dir Michaela Režová, Ivan Studený | 2018 | Czechia | ||
| Animated fabric brings the story of a lingerie factory in Manchester to life. | In urban China, a man makes plasticine figures of popular characters. | ||||||
| 2 | Sent Away | 7 | The Elephant’s Song | ||||
| dir Rosa Fisher | 2019 | UK | dir Lynn Tomlinson | 2019 | USA | ||
| A child sent to boarding school must contend with the trauma of abandonment. | The sad but true story of Old Bet, the first circus elephant in America. | ||||||
| 3 | Fifteen-Two | 8 | The Children of Concrete | ||||
| dir John Summerson | 2019 | UK | dir Jonathan Phanhsay-Chamson | 2017 | France | ||
| The filmmaker’s mother recalls her parents’ indomitable relationship, strengthened by their love of games. | An immigrant child’s conflict with ethnic and national identity. | ||||||
| 4 | O Hunter Heart | 9 | Eadem Cutis | ||||
| dir Carla MacKinnon | 2019 | UK | dir Nina Hopf | 2019 | Germany | ||
| Nature and domesticity collide in a dark take of love and loss. | A person’s attempt to frame their conflict with dysphoria. | ||||||
| 5 | The Drip | 10 | 1 Minute History of Image Distortion | ||||
| dir Leonie Ketteler | 2019 | Netherlands | dir Betina Kuntzsch | 2017 | Germany | ||
| You’ve never seen Chlamydia in quite this way before. | Material resistance in film history. |
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