CALL FOR ENTRIES 2025 NOW OPEN!

A very happy new year to you all and welcome to 2025, the year that marks a decade since the first edition of MAF, and how time has flown! Hot on the heels of our 2024 edition we’re once more tooting the horn and declaring our call for entries for MAF 2025 well and truly open!

Head over to our FilmFreeway page to submit your film. Our Early Bird Deadline is 3 March 2025, so take advantage of those lower prices while you still can! The final deadline is the 18 July, so plenty of time to submit if you’re still working on your masterpiece! Manchester Animation Festival is the UK’s only Academy Award Qualifying animation festival as well as a BAFTA and BIFA Qualifying event. You can view previous winners of our competition categories here:

Past Winners

We’re on the lookout for Short Films, Student Films, Commissioned Films and Immersive Films and if you happen to have a Feature Film then please get in touch with the team!

Winners of our categories will receive one of our iconic trophies designed by the legendary Mackinnon & Saunders (pictured above), so submit your work today or send this info along to a filmmaking friend.

Happy filmmaking – we can’t wait to see your work!

SUBMIT YOUR FILM HERE:

https://filmfreeway.com/ManchesterAnimationFestival

MAF Presents: The Illusionist (L’Illusionniste)

The Illusionist (L’Illusioniste) is Sylvain Chomet’s follow-up to Belleville Rendezvous and is a delightful, almost wordless tale based on a previously unmade script by film icon Jacques Tati. To celebrate 15 years since the release of this cinematic gem, MAF will be screening the film at HOME as part of our MAF Presents series on the 27 January with an introduction.

“The Illusionist is one of a dying breed of stage entertainers. With emerging rock stars stealing his thunder, he is forced to accept increasingly obscure assignments in fringe theatres, at garden parties and in bars and cafes. However, while performing in a village pub off the west coast of Scotland, he encounters Alice, an innocent young girl, who will change his life forever.”

A magical evening is on the cards so make those January blues disappear with this enchanting film!

The Illusionist (L’Illusioniste)

Dir Sylvain Chomet / France / United Kingdom 2010 / 80 mins

HOME Mcr

Mon 27 Jan, 18:00 – Non-Dialogue English, French and Gaelic

MORE INFO & TICKETS:

MAF Presents/ The Illusionist + intro

BAFTA CONGRATULATIONS!

A huge MAF congratulations to all the longlist nominees for the BAFTAs 2025.

In the British Short Animated category, all of the nominations featured as part of MAF 2024 with Mee and Burd and Plunge screening in our British Animated Short Film Award category and Three Hares and Wander to Wonder screening as part of the Animation Mixtape. Adiós screened in Student Film Panorama and Mog’s Christmas won the Industry Excellence Award for Storyboarding.

For Animated Film, which covers features we’re delighted to see MAF Award winner Flow and Memoir of a Snail, which received a special mention from our Jury get a nod, alongside That Christmas, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and The Wild Robot which we featured with fascinating behind the scenes conversations and presentations with Justin Hutchinson-Chatburn (That Christmas), Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham (Wallace & Gromit) and Chris Sanders (The Wild Robot). The film find themselves long listed alongside Despicable Me 4, Inside Out 2 and Moana 2.

The EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 ceremony hosted by David Tennant at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 16 February 2025. Good luck to all candidates!

As awards season rolls towards on we’re delighted to send a huge congratulations to director Gints Zilbalodis, winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Flow. The Latvian film won our feature film award and we’re delighted to see an independent film top this category for the first ever time.

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