‘Where is My Home?’ by Cecilia De Jesus

Still from ‘Where is my Home?’

‘Where is My home?’ by Cecelia de Jesus was the official winner of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Student voices film competition in 2013. The film tells the story of Vera Gissing and her escape from Czechoslovakia during the start of the Holocaust. The USC Shoah Foundation is home to one of the largest collections of digital archive footage of Holocaust survivors and witnesses, currently housing over 55,000 video testimonies.

De Jesus used archive footage, along with sand animation, to bring Vera Gissing’s story to life. When watching the film, you can’t help but be entranced by the macro sequences where we see individual grains of sand and translucency. The abstract imagery De Jesus creates with the sand spotlights Gissing’s testimony, the moving images accompanying her voice rather than pulling attention away from it. The film tells a harrowing real-life story, emphasising Vera Gissing’s voice.

Watch ‘Where is My Home?’ below:

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ANIDOX:LAB by The Animation Workshop & Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Did you know that the Anidox Lab was involved in the R&D process for the animated documentary Flee?

Here Michelle Kranot gives us some insights into the process of working on animated documentary ideas in the early stages:

“We salute the team of FLEE for their hard work and conviction. ANIDOX are proud to be engaged in the early development of this project, when director Jonas Poher Rasmussen joined our ANIDOX:LAB. We helped him make his first teaser, and ‘matched’ him with the Animation production studio SunCreature. We also followed the process closely and consulted whenever it was useful.

We hope others feel as inspired by this film and as energized as we do – We believe that more filmmakers, artists, journalists and producers will now consider this unique marriage of animation and documentary – and that audiences become more open and curious.

Applications for ANIDOX:LAB 2022 are open until 20.4.22

Application

‘Flee’ by Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Flee tells the story of Amin Nawabi as he grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon-to-be husband. Winning many awards and accolades including the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, this film has garnered much critical acclaim since its release in 2021.

Told to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen under an alias, we witness the life-threatening, heartbreaking journey undertaken as a child refugee from Afghanistan. The animation is interspersed with archive footage from Afghanistan, punctuating the memories with indexical images; the sequences striking a resemblance to events currently unfolding in Ukraine. This is further heightened by the plight of the refugees trying to find a way through systems to safe places, which in this story took many years. Alongside this is the sub storyline of Amin’s sexual identity and his coming of age as a displaced refugee.

Flee was initially developed as part of AniDox Lab.

https://neonrated.com/films/flee

Factual Animation Film Festival 2021

The 7^th Edition of Factual Animation Film Festival was held at Queen Mary University of London’s Hitchcock Cinema on the 16^th October 2021. The festival programme was also made available online until the 24^th October. For full details visit factualanimation.com

The programme consisted of curated screenings and a series of interviews with animation directors conducted by Holly Murtha, festival director, and Alex Widdowson, festival producer.

The Beauty of Mathematics, an interview with Sarah Gorf-Roloff

In Absentia, Interview with Adriana Monteforte

I Want To Be Bored & The Things Around Us, interview with Magda Kreps

Skeleton of A Moth, interview with Emma Kay Smith

Moosehide Slide – Interview with Dan Sokolowski

Awards

There were two awards presented at FAFF this year: Best Student Film and Best Animated Documentary Film

The award for Best Student film went to Magda Kreps for I Want To Be Board

The award for Best Film went to Laurent Leprince for Waka Huia

You can visit the FAFF website here https://factualanimation.com/

‘Perinatal Positivity’ by ForMed Films

Still from Perinatal Positivity

This is an Animated Documentary and wrap around campaign to raise awareness and talk about some of the mental health wellbeing difficulties parents may face during pregnancy, birth and after. The aim is to emotionally support parents and enable them to find support. First hand testimonies along with animated characters and storylines open up conversations and experiences that are often difficult to start or hear. This film is directed by Emma Lazenby through ForMed Films, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company.

Rising of the Lusitania Festival 3, Gdansk Poland

The festival who shares the name of the first known Animated Documentary features a stellar line up of films. Their selection includes a mockumentary category and a Rising of the Pandemic category on films made about and during the pandemic.

The festival is screening on location, alongside a hybrid online/ offline conference. You can find more details here: www.animadoc.pl

Rosa Fisher wins the FAFF AnimatedDocumentary.com award for best film

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.

The first AnimatedDocumentary.com Award at FAFF 2016!

We were thrilled to be part of this years Factual Animation Film Fuss festival: hosting an event, giving our first ever award, and mingling with the great and the good of the UK animated documentary crowd.

The festival is in its second year, run by Daniel Murtha, and hosted at the Genesis Cinema in London, UK. In addition to several programmes of the best new work in animated documentary, a Q&A with film-maker Samantha Moore, chaired by Alys Scott-Hawkins, opened out discussions with a number of film-makers in the audience, including Mary Martins, Emma Calder and Alex Widdowson.

Still from Truth Has Fallen by Sheila Sofian

The AnimatedDocumentary.com award was presented on the final night of the festival. We were very pleased to have our award sponsored by animated documentary director Sheila Sofian. The winner received signed original artwork from Sheila’s film ‘Truth has Fallen’, a feature length documentary we have featured on the blog. The film is about about people wrongfully convicted of murder and the weaknesses in the US justice system that allowed these injustices to occur. You can find out more about Sheila’s work on her website here.

The winning film was Spirit Away by Bettina Kuntzsch. We thought that the film was a fantastic example of using existing documentary evidence to engage the audience.

We also awarded two Special Mentions: Loop by Samantha Moore and Life Inside Islamic State by Scott Coello. We made a third award for Best New Voice and this went to The Divide by Mary Martins.

Loop by Samantha Moore

Life Inside Islamic State by Scott Coello

The Divide by Mary Martens

‘Seeking Refuge’ series for television by Andy Glynne

A series of animated shorts illustrating young people’s perspectives of living as refugees and asylum seekers. Part of the BBC Two Learning Zone, this series won a Children’s BAFTA in 2012.

Produced by Mosaic Films in London, UK.
Director: Andy Glynne
Animation Directors: Salvador Maldonado, Karl Hammond, Tom Senior and Jonathan Topf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00vdxrk

Award winning Animated Documentary at DOK Fest Leipzig

Still image from ‘Still Born’

Fresh news from DOK Leipzig: Two animated documentaries have won awards. Firstly the Winner of the Golden Dove for best International Animated Film at DOK Leipzig is an animated documentary called ‘Still Born’ by Åsa Sandzén, a very touching film about a mother who has to decide what is best for her unborn child and herself. Here is the information below

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/festival/preistraeger-2014/goldene-taube-animationsfilm

Also, awarded was the Golden Dove for best animated documentary. It went to an experimental film called ‘White Death’by Roberto Collío.

Here is the link:

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/festival/preistraeger-2014/goldene-taube-animadok

Congratulations to both film makers!