After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.
This programme represents our yearly exploration of abstract and experimental animation. It features 17 short films where animators use a wide range of techniques, from hand-drawn “musical scores” to high-definition computer-assisted imagery. Each film reflects a deep passion for animated movement and showcases the artist’s skill in using colour and crafting non-narrative visuals to captivate the screen.
LIAF is one of the very few animation festivals in the world to devote an entire programme to abstract and experimental animation. We do this because we believe that the tenets that underpin great abstract animation go to the very heart of what it is to create beautiful, frame by frame animated imagery; a form of animated artmaking with a history that reaches back to the earliest days of the animation. Also – we do it because we love abstract animation!!
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SKRFF – Corrie Francis Parks & Daniel Nuderscher, Austria
A graffiti wall in Vienna becomes an archeological site and a sgraffito sculpture, as skrffologists activate traces of the past with stop motion animation. But can history ever be remembered clearly in all its complexity?
2024 7’00 min
Shapes – Tsz-wing Ho, Hong Kong
A psychedelic and mysterious galaxy composed of different shapes, textures, patterns and colours.
2023 5’20 min
Help Desk – Edwin Rostron, UK
A hypnotic hand drawn animation, providing a meditative and contemplative space, oscillating between flatness and depth, control and instability.
2023 3’10 min
Rekonstrukt – Gabor Ulrich, Hungary
In 1923, Andor Weininger, a Hungarian-born artist, musician and leader of the Weimar Bauhaus group, put down on paper the first animated film script for a Hungarian animated film, but the abstract work would not be realised until exactly one hundred years later.
2023 4’05 min
Entropic Memory – Nicolas Brault, Canada
This photographic exploration of family photo albums ravaged by water evokes hazy and indistinct memories, poignant witnesses of a fragile past.
2024 6’30 min
Flow – Alex Bai, Hong Kong
Lens-based video and photography combine with digital geometric shapes to imitate the invisible flow in nature.
2024 3’0 min
Lines – Martin Schmidt, Germany
An aggressive battle unfolds between red and dark blue. The borderlines between the colours vibrate with tension as they fight for their lives.
2024 4’10 min
Tao – Shuxin Yan Wang, Simai Stella Huang & Haoran Yan Yang, Hong Kong
Chinese Taoism, the concepts of yin and yang, and the Five Elements. Dao generates one, one generates two, two generates three and three generates all things.
2024 2’15 min
Dawn & Dusk – Toni Mitjanit, Spain
The time between dawn and dusk reveals how the dual nature of light changes on a microscopic level, through the vibrations of photons, the oscillations of electromagnetic waves, and the properties of light refraction and reflection.
2022 5’10 min
0.1g – Raymond Hoepflinger, Switzerland
Fluids leak from the body, seeping through various orifices and beyond the boundary of the skin.
2023 1’55 min
To Hear to See – Dirk de Bruyn, Australia
A fusion of abstract optical soundtracks from analogue 16mm and 35mm film expanding on the 1930’s Russian experiments of Nikolai Voinov which impacted electronic music.
2023 4’35 min
Clash – Yuming Liao, Jingxian Zhan & Yingyue Zhuang, Hong Kong
Two geometric objects explore and challenge each other’s domains by switching tactics and transforming body forms.
2024 1’30 min
Electronic Insects – Keum-Taek Jung, USA
The connection between nature and abstraction characterised by the shapes and forms of a myriad of insects’ features.
2023 1’30 min
Grain Cloud Atmosphere – Martin Moolhuijsen, Italy
Many grains make a cloud. Many clouds form an atmosphere. An exploration of the perception of time through the eyes and ears.
2023 6’40 min
Geometric Symphony – Ka Yuet Chan & Yau Hing Lam, Hong Kong
A symphony of flapping and vibrating imagery set to a whirlwind of perfectly synchronised optical sounds.
2024 2’15 min
Fusion – Richard Reeves, Canada
Drawn directly onto 35mm motion picture film without the use of camera or musical instruments, a visual and aural feast for the senses.
2024 3’15 min
(S) – Mario Radev, UK
An immersive loop of organic forms, reflecting on the entangled nature of life and art.
2024 12’30 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
Opened in March 2022, The Garden Cinema screens repertory seasons and new releases from around the world. Being truly independent, they choose films that are worth seeing, films you’d be happy to see more than once. Films of all genres that are true to life, well made, that left us feeling better or wiser for having seen them. For more information about The Garden Cinema and how to get there, find out more.
Online, The Garden Cinema
