Why we need animation festivals

It was amazing to see the Brit’s success at the Emmy’s this week, which makes you realise how the UK creative industry so often punches above its weight for such a small island.

And this should be celebrated more often, especially in such negative times for the country as a whole.

This new golden age of TV fueled from the tech streamers has spilled into the animation industry, causing booming times for all of the studios producing TV content.

This puts a huge pressure on talent and is therefore a key driver of the skills shortage.

So we need to quickly inspire a new generation of artists to bolster our industry to ensure its continued success.

But with the current education system not giving the arts the attention it needs and deserves, this is very tricky.

Therefore we need to find every other way of boosting the love of culture and arts in the UK.

And animation festivals are key to this! So events like Manchester Animation Festival are vital.

It’s also exciting the BFI is also helping with this, with initiatives like the animated shorts film funding & the YACF (and supporting the festival!).

But we urgently need more joined-up thinking, for example, universities working closely with studios, to match the amazing talents coming out of France.

This also gives a great opportunity to drive inclusion & diversity, as it helps resolves the business pain of struggling to find great employees, which is the best way to appeal to management!

So it’s fantastic that the festival is doing so much with these young age groups and focusing on not just screening beautiful animations, but helping develop skills for all those attending.

But it’s too easy to take for granted and to forget how lucky we are to work in this industry, full of passionate and caring artists.

And Steve, Jen & Bill who run the festival are the epitome of that, so I’m humbled to be invited to Chair the Board for the festival, and be able to help the team out in any way I can and play a small part in a hugely important event.