Dick Arnall, the hugely influential producer of many of Britain’s most important animators, and a key figure in Channel 4’s Animate! commissioning series in the 1990s and early 2000s, would have been 80 this year. His death aged 62 in 2007 robbed the animation world of one of its most passionate and committed advocates. Dick’s wide-ranging tastes, warm enthusiasm and his profound engagement with what he preferred to call the ‘manipulated moving image’ began in his student years and took many different forms over the decades to come. This programme gathers just a handful of the numerous often award-winning titles he either produced or consulted on, and includes a film by his wife, the Finnish animator Marjut Rimminen and the acclaimed Rabbit by the late Run Wrake, who also died far too early, in 2012. In what we take as a significant conjunction, this event takes place on what was Run’s birthday.
The event is conceived, curated and hosted by Gareth Evans, who worked editorially on Animate! with Dick.
Several of the filmmakers will be in attendance for discussion after the screening.
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I’m Not a Feminist But… – Marjut Rimminen, UK
Watch out! If you insist on saying “I’m not a feminist, but…”, then you may well find yourself pushing the old man over the edge, or behind the sofa – as the case may be.This witty polemic is adapted from the cartoons and drawings in the book of the same name by Christine Roche.
1986 8’00 min
Extn 21 – Lizzie Oxby, UK
A short film about one man’s desire to be heard, which uses an innovative blend of atmospheric stop-frame animation, live action performance (a stop-frame puppet with a live-action head) and digital effects to create a dark world of uncertain reality.
2003 9’00 min
A is for Autism – Tim Webb, UK
Based upon contributions and collaborations with autistic people which gave them, quite literally, a voice of their own, every design in the film originates from a drawing by a person with autism.
1992 11’00 min
An Anatomy of Melancholy – Jo Ann Kaplan, UK
Accompanying images of the human body we hear the words of Keats’ Ode on Melancholy’. A cinematic meditation on mortality.
2000 13’00 min
Home Road Movies – Robert Bradbrook, UK
‘No longer restricted to zone three of the local buses, our dad took us on motoring holidays of a lifetime’. Using animation combined with treated album photographs, the film tells the real-life story of a shy and awkward father who desperately wanted the family car to make him a better parent.
2002 12’00 min
Death and the Mother – Ruth Lingford, UK
When death takes away her child, a mother gives up everything to get her back. ‘Death and the Mother’ is Ruth Lingford’s re-telling of a classic fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
1998 10’00 min
Yours Truly – Osbert Parker, UK
Characters burst through yesterday’s emulsion to tell the conflicting story of Frank and Charlie who sacrifice their morals to find what they truly love as worlds of live action and animation collide.
2006 8’00 min
This film is not included in our online programme
Rabbit – Run Wrake, UK
A dreamlike but dark story of lost innocence and the random justice of nature, told with curious images from a distant childhood. When an idol is found in the stomach of a rabbit, great riches follow. But for how long?
2005 9’00 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
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