From award winning shorts (including this year’s Student Academy Award) to innovative breakthrough new talent, this year’s programme focuses on exciting British and international filmmakers who use a diverse range of live action and animation techniques to explore black, ethnically-diverse themes and how we live in multicultural societies around the world today. Innovative storytelling combined with personal experience and experimental techniques take viewers deep into brave new worlds and the private lives of others; challenging cultural mindsets and making the invisible visible in complex worlds which are not always black & white, but rich with colour that make us question our biases and consider different points of views.
Disrupting the Narrative 2: Changing Mindsets, Expanding Voices was co-curated with Osbert Parker – BAFTA and Emmy nominated Director and Ambassador for FLAMIN Animations at Film London.
Chair: Osbert Parker
Three times BAFTA nominated and award winning filmmaker Osbert Parker is perhaps best known for creating stories that use experimental and innovative film techniques. They often combine photo cut-out animation with objects and live action to create one-of-a-kind imaginary landscapes in mixed media short films, commercials, TV entertainment and online content. Emmy nominated in 2022 for Outstanding Main Title Design on Lisey’s Story, his independent short animated films continue to receive acclaim on the international film festival circuit. Film Noir was nominated for best short animated film by BAFTA and won a Palme d’Or nomination at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. Yours Truly was the best short animated film winner at the British Animation Awards and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2008 and selected for Sundance. With 35 years experience of working in the creative industries, Osbert balances his freelance work with delivering masterclasses, seminars and running international animation workshops. Committed to helping new generations of filmmakers, Osbert is a Senior Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and a regular visiting animation lecturer at The National Film & Television School.
Gisela Mulindwa
Gisela Mulindwa is an experimental animator and visual artist based in London. A graduate in Animation from Edinburgh College of Art, her practice takes an experimental mixed media approach to animation, working between stop motion, collage, paint and film to create dense and complex textures. She challenges social expectations around identity to unravel the relationship between self, other and the unconscious, revealing a world shaped by magical realism. Mulindwa’s work has screened at festivals including the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Tricky Women Animation Festival, and she was commissioned to produce animations for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021 and 2022. Committed to challenging audience expectations of what animation can be, her work as an animator has led to theatre commissions, developing moving image alongside theatre design in projects at Theatre Peckham and Vault Festival. Gisela is also currently working on a FLAMIN Animation commission.
Lisa Kenney
Born storyteller, proud northerner and Student Academy Award Winner, Lisa Kenney is a director/animator with something to say. With comedy at the core of her practice, she strives to tell authentic, grounded and gritty stories with integrity and wit – pushing the boundaries of what animation can be in a bid to represent characters that might not have gotten a look in otherwise. Since graduating from the National Film and Television School in March where she was awarded the accolade of Most Promising Student, Lisa has enjoyed several award wins on the festival circuit; including a student Oscar, a student BAFTA semi-finalist place and Best Animation at Sunderland Shorts Film Festival. She’s currently developing her first live action short for BBC Film – and has recently signed with LA based management company, The Gotham Group.
Robert-Jonathan Koeyers
Robert-Jonathan Koeyers (born in Curaçao) is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker. He studied animation at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam where he graduated with an experimental film titled Here: A Visual Poem, which served both as a dense collection of visual research, as well as an abstract and poetic telling of the work that he would continue to make. After receiving a Wildcard from the Netherlands Film Fund for his graduation film, he set out to write and direct his animated debut short film It’s Nice Here, which would go on to have a world premiere in Cannes and get shortlisted for an Academy Award. Throughout the years Robert-Jonathan has been using film, photography, animation, music, and other mediums to help turn his stories into deeply personal projects that aim to unpack how his Blackness has shaped and moulded him into the person he is, and aim to explore how the lived experiences of Black people can be told in an authentic and vulnerable way. Robert-Jonathan currently lives in Rotterdam where he continues to write and direct short films, and works as a tutor at the Willem de Kooning Academy.
Buzzing (uncut) – Jorge Mario Zuleta, Costa Rica
Buzzing basses and electronic squelches. A visual language made from colours, shapes and dynamism.
2016 2’25 min
It’s Nice in Here – Robert-Jonathan Koeyers, Netherlands
A fragmented portrait of a moment, a person, and a place, seen through the subjective memories of a young Black girl and a rookie police officer who both have wildly different recollections of the same fateful moment in a corner store that will leave their lives altered forever.
2022 15’40 min
By Water – Iyabo Kwayana, USA
An unlikely hero’s journey into his own memories becomes a vehicle for reconciliation and healing for himself and his sibling.
2023 12’00 min
Discussing the Magical Negro – Gisela Mulindwa, UK
A conversation about the Magical Negro trope, a frequent representation of Black people on screen.
2021 2’30 min
The Vandal – Eddie Alcazar, USA
Set in a world not unlike mid-20th century America, a man’s tormented search for peace from traumatic loss results in an unexpectedly destructive awakening after he undergoes a lobotomy.
2021 15’40 min
Here – Robert-Jonathan Koeyers, Netherlands
An experimental visual poem combining film, animation, photography, and archival footage inviting people to occupy the Black Body and examine the lived Black experience for a brief moment.
2018 5’45 min
The Place I Like to Call – Gisela Mulindwa, UK
Collage, cut-out, stop-motion, digital and analogue techniques combine with tribal rhythms, chanting and dancing in a joyous love-letter to home.
2023 4’50 min
Holy Holocaust – Osi Wald & Noa Berman-Herzberg, Israel
A dark family secret from the past opens an abyss between two close friends: Jennifer, a German, discovers that she is the black granddaughter of a Notorious Nazi commander, and her life is turned upside down, while Noa, an Israeli, is doing whatever she can to prevent her life from turning.
2021 17’25 min
Mum’s Spaghetti – Lisa Kenney, UK
Winner of the 2023 Student Academy Award. MC mastermind Poppy and her beatboxing border terrier Snoop are the new kids in town – and they’re ready to make their reputation known.
2023 10’55 min
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to the Arts Council England
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
Venue
The Barbican is Europe’s largest multi-arts and conference venue presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and education events. For more information about The Barbican and how to get there, find out more.
Barbican, Online
