Animation

Wolf Children

Expert storytelling from Anime director Mamoru Hosoda

Although this Japanese animated film tells a story about people who can turn into wolves, it would be a mistake to assume that it is just for kids. Directed and co-written by The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’s Mamoru Hosoda, Wolf Children is a complex…

The King of Pigs

Korean adult animation with a thought-provoking storyline and great attention to detail

The first feature from award-winning shorts director Yeon Sang-ho has a visual look reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli production allied to a narrative in the classic film noir manner. Bankrupt businessman Hwang Kyung-min murders his wife and then reaches…

2013 Manipulate festival of puppetry and animation

Programme includes work by TIP Connection, Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson and The Paper Cinema

Now in its sixth year, the Manipulate Festival has evolved into a highlight of Scotland’s cultural calendar. In 2013, the puppetry and animation festival returns to the Traverse but adds Summerhall to its list of Edinburgh venues too and boasts its…

The animation companies behind The Illusionist, The Ooglies and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Ink Digital, Ko-lik Films, Axis Animation, Red Kite and Show Them Pictures

When Pixar wants to tell a Scottish story, the world listens. But the global popularity of Princess Merida in Brave is only a small part of the story in terms of Scotland and animation. There’s a growing confidence, skill and expertise in the industry…

Frankenweenie

Tim Burton’s latest is a triumphant black and white animation

The commodified pseudo-weirdness of Tim Burton has become a bit of a bugbear, even for those who once fell hard for his particular brand of whimsy. Wearying in its repetition of the same Goth-lite tropes, over-reliant on Johnny Depp’s cutesy bug-eyed…

Revisiting: Frankenweenie (1984)

Tim Burton’s original Frankenstein tribute is lovingly constructed, despite its troubled past

It’s hard to know what Disney were thinking when they took on Tim Burton in 1979. Freshly graduated from CalArts (alongside future Pixar bods John Lasseter and Brad Bird, as well as The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick), Burton had…

It's Grimm Up North

Animated character grotesquesset in fictional Hardington leave you cold

The first two episodes of this animated series introduce us to a handful of characters - through stories based on fairy tales and fables - who live in the fictional town of Hardington. The animation is distinctive and quirky and the first film in…

Arthur Christmas

Jolly enough, but lacking usual Aardman Animation wit and charm

(U) 97mins In over two decades since Wallace and Gromit’s A Grand Day Out, Aardman Animation have become a byword for family entertainment, but Arthur Christmas, their latest attempt at a blockbuster, never reaches the same lovable heights. As he…

Reel Science events programme among highlights of Edinburgh Film Festival

Tomboy, My Brothers and Project Nim among film highlights

After my fearless leader’s less-than-generous appraisal of this aged Festival’s opening night, I’m hoping to bring a little bit of love for EIFF back to these web pages. Admittedly, the pared-down nature of this year’s Festival is most noticeable in the…

Top 5: Artists lending their talents to children's TV voice-overs

Featuring Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Arthur Lowe and more

Ah, the life of the serious actor. All that serious acting they have to do; all the line learning, the getting into character, the understanding and channelling of the character's emotional vulnerabilities and personality traits. Its enough to drive a…

Manipulate festival - Puppetry and animation festival avoids the P word

Traverse season features cult animation and visually arresting films

Simon Hart is trying not to use the P word. When he describes his annual Manipulate festival, he prefers to call it a celebration of visual theatre (with the teasing strap line: ‘innovative theatre arts for consenting adults’) than to say anything about…

Chico & Rita

(15) 93min This Spanish-made, English-language, feature-length animation joins the ever-growing list of highly unconventional, beautifully realised, adult-oriented cartoons made outside of America that also includes The Illusionist, Waltz with Bashir…

Document 8 and Africa in Motion

Two spirited local film festivals

The term ‘human rights cinema’ may sound too much like hard work for the average cinemagoer. But for the last seven years Document, the Glasgow-based International Human Rights Film Festival, has been demonstrating that films about human rights simply…

Alpha and Omega

(U) 88min Improbably dedicated to the late Hollywood wild man Dennis Hopper, who provides the voice of pack leader Tony, Alpha and Omega is a cutesy animation for toddlers only. Sultry alpha wolf Kate (Hayden Panettiere) is expected by her pack’s…

A Town Called Panic (Panique Au Village)

(PG) 77min This insane Belgium animated feature is the big screen spin-off of the popular 2003 television series of the same name created by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar. Its UK release is being championed by Hammer & Tongs, the pop…

The Secret of Kells

(PG) 78min Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s luscious animated film takes inspiration from The Book of Kells, a key work in Irish medieval history. But rather than the three-dimensional style currently favoured by Pixar and DreamWorks, Moore and Twomey…

Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage)

(PG) 72min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Previously unavailable on DVD, René Laloux’s 1973 animated sci-fi feature is a startling rediscovery. Based on Stefan Wul’s 1957 novel Oms by the Dozen, Laloux’s extraordinary film is a kind of Swiftian…

The Quay Brothers' Maska plus film without images - HP Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

Wednesday 23rd June. While EIFF’s programme focuses mainly on conventional feature-films, there are several one-off events scattered throughout the Festival’s 10 days, so I decided to investigate a couple of the more adventurous ones. The first was a…

Stanley Pickle, Baby and Rita among winning films at EIFF new talent awards

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

Monday was quite a sedate affair – after a number of days where going to bed late and getting up early was the norm, I treated myself to a lie-in before heading into town to catch a few movies (‘Postales’, at last, and ‘Chase The Slut’ – interview on…

Pixar make Brave move with Reese Witherspoon and Billy Connolly after Toy Story 3

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

Sunday 20 June Edinburgh calls itself a festival of discovery, and it’s true, the majority of films playing here are by first- or second-time filmmakers, and you go into each screening hoping to discover the next great moviemaking talent. But, as…

The Illusionist opens EIFF 2010 - Sylvain Chomet interview

The year after French animator Sylvain Chomet knocked out cinema-goers at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival with his wildly eccentric and utterly charming double-Oscar nominated debut feature, Belleville Rendez-vous (aka The Triplets of…

The Illusionist - video clips

One of the most talked about movies at this year's Film Festival is The Illusionist, Sylvain Chomet's first feature since the critically acclaimed Belleville Rendez-vous. Based on a Jacques Tati script and transposed to 1950s Scotland it is the story…

The Illusionist - Sylvain Chomet's animated feature creates an Edinburgh never seen before

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, the film opening the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival, puts a vision of Edinburgh, and rural Scotland, on screen like no other. Set in 1950s Edinburgh and the Western Isles, locations depicted in the animated…

The best of animation in Scotland

It’s time to get animated, with June promising the UK premiere of the latest venture from Sylvain Belleville Rendez-vous Chomet in the form of The Illusionist, which provides the opening gala at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. As well…

Ponyo (Gake No Ue No Ponyo)

(U) 101min An animated feature about a five-year-old boy who falls for a goldfish princess may not sound like a hot ticket, but the delightful content of Ponyo will be no surprise to anyone already in thrall to the Studio Ghibli brand. After Hayao…