This year’s films portray characters who confront societal pressures, whether it’s environmental destruction, discrimination, or personal identity struggles that tell stories about the urgency of sustainable living. Simultaneously, they explore the fight for equal rights, challenging systems of oppression, striving for a future of fairness and justice. Using a wide range of innovative, experimental animation techniques (and lots of wool), the films underscore existential crises and struggles marginalised groups face, whether due to migration, race, gender, or sexual orientation, while also capturing the beauty of resilience, love, and unity in the face of adversity. Together, these deeply personal yet universal narratives create space for empathy, awareness and reflection in the search for belonging and a meaningful life.
Disrupting The Narrative was co-curated with Osbert Parker – BAFTA and Emmy nominated Director.
This programme will be open captioned including live-captioning for the Screentalk.
Panellists
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.
Neeraja Raj
Neeraja, an Animation Director based in London, was recently honoured as one of Variety’s Top 10 Animators to Watch and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Represented by VERVE, and Gotham Group, her projects have been officially featured in Oscar®-Qualifying festivals, including SXSW, Tribeca, BIFF and Austin Film Festival.Her recent experiences include working with Aardman Animations (as a writer on Shaun the Sheep) and Disney Animation.
Simone Giampaolo
Simone is a London-based Swiss Director with an insatiable appetite for meaningful storytelling, emotional narratives and humorous characters. In 2013 he graduated from the National Centre for Computer Animation in Bournemouth. Simone has written and directed over ten multi-award-winning original short films, including the Oscar®-shortlisted and BAFTA-nominated “Only a Child”. His recent work includes directing the hit Netflix animated series “Bad Dinosaurs”. Currently, he is working as Series Director on the original TV series “Stan & Gran”, commissioned by Milkshake! and Nickelodeon UK, while also working on an exciting unannounced feature film project with Timeless Films.
Baz Sells
Baz is a British, working-class director. His stop-motion films often explore socially conscious themes, captured with meticulous care to detail. Baz co-founded independent Animation Studio ‘One6th’ alongside producer Ben Jackson in 2018. Since then, their work has earned nominations at The SHOTS Young Director of The Year Awards 2022 and the British Animation Awards in addition to wins including a Kinsale Shark Award for best international animated short film. Their latest project, ‘Two Black Boys in Paradise’, is a collaboration with poet Dean Atta, received early development support from actor Ian McKellen, and was funded by The British Film Institute.
Nathan Addai
Nathan is an award-winning 2D animator, BA Animation lecturer and youth mentor. He has worked with and been awarded by various institutions, including the BBC, BFI, Royal Society of Arts and Ridley Scott Association. Nathan is the founder of Mental Roots, a creative mental wellness movement based on his BBC animation with the same name. Through the brand, Nathan delivers workshops, creative courses and visual content to develop mental wellbeing and creativity in youth of diverse backgrounds.
Danielle Rhoda Addae-Boateng
Danielle is an established freelance animator and illustrator, originally from Poland but based in the UK. She is known for her varied mark-making and often analogue approach to image creation and has been commissioned by the Guardian, the New York Times, CNN and the BBC, amongst others. She takes pride in visualising complex and abstract feelings in a sensitive way. ‘Apple Gatherers’ is her introduction into mixing animation with live-action and theatre-like performance. She is currently working on her second film funded by BBC Film, due to be filmed early 2026.
Yasmine Djédjé-Fisher-Azoumé
Yasmine is a freelance animator based in London, currently working as a producer at an independent animation studio. Her animation work is a blend of digitally drawn 2D animation, traditional paper animation and analogue techniques, and draws thematic and aesthetic influences principally from her West African (Ivorian) heritage. In 2025, Yasmine won the Film London Lodestar Award in the animation category. She recently produced the short animated film Creekmouth in collaboration with Create London and the Creekmouth Preservation Society. Her previous work includes RAFTS, a collaboration with Turner Prize-shortlisted artist Rory Pilgrim. In 2021, she was commissioned by the V&A to create an original animation for the Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser exhibition.
Desi Oon – Suresh Eriyat, India
Deccani wool is a testament to tradition and the sacred bond between humans, animals and nature – neglected and nearly forgotten today in the shadow of industrialisation.
2025 8’00 min
Two Black Boys in Paradise – Baz Sells, UK
Eden (19) and Dula (18) are two Black boys on a journey of self-acceptance. Their love for each other, and their refusal to hide it, lands them in a paradise free from shame and judgement. Based on the poem by Dean Atta.
2025 8’50 min
Machini – Frank Mukunday & Tetshim, Belgium / DR Congo
Using chalk drawings, stones and repurposed materials, Machini talks about the influence that mining has on the city, and the pollution and the slow destruction of man by man.
2019 9’45 min
Fiente – Jonathan Djob Nkondo, UK / France
A blue giant is disturbed by a bird’s faeces as it suddenly becomes alive.
2016 4’35 min
Dede (Ancestor) – Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume, UK
The divine female figure in West African sculpture is viewed through an exploration of the director’s Bété ancestry, drawing upon the spiritual iconography of the Bété people and other tribal groups on the Ivory Coast.
2024 3’10 min
Mental Roots – Nathan Addai, UK
Mental Roots places you in the shoes of a first-generation black Brit coming to terms with reaching his ‘breaking point’.
2021 4’00 min
Riot – Frank Ternier, France
A young black man is killed during an altercation with a vigilante neighbour and the police. An outraged crowd gathers. The sense of injustice is great. A group isolates itself. Emotion breeds a riot…in the absence of words, can the body take revenge?
2017 13’25 min
Love in the Age of EU – Ebele Okoye, Nigeria / Germany
Sometimes, we are like marionettes in the hands of those whom we have either consciously or unconsciously chosen to please. A visual adaptation of the poem “Love in the Age of EU” by Björn Kuhligk.
2014 3’00 min
Apple Gatherers – Danielle Rhoda Addae-Boateng, UK
Two workers in an apple-cider factory move through a labour-intensive world of monotony and detachment. Amid the machinery and routine, a fleeting spark of human connection reminds them what it means to feel alive.
2025 8’45 min
Only a Child – Simone Giampaolo, Switzerland
An Oscar®-shortlisted visual poem created by over 20 animation directors which gives shape and colour to the original words spoken by Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the UN Summit in Rio in 1992, a child’s desperate call to action for the future of our planet.
2021 6’45 min
Meow or Never – Neeraja Raj, UK
In a madcap musical, a catstronaut travels the galaxy looking for the meaning of life – only to encounter an overeager space pup who causes trouble at every turn! The duo go on an unexpected journey together and she discovers a lot more than she expected to find.
2020 9’40 min
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to The Elf Factory, official sponsor of LIAF 2025.
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
