Tomorrow’s Animation, Today: PIXELWISE’s Thoughts on the Manchester Animation Festival 2025
Credit: Manchester Animation Festival 2025 Poster by Steph Ramplin
We at PIXELWISE had the pleasure of attending the 2025 edition of the Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) - the UK’s only Oscar® and BAFTA® qualifying animation festival. The event took place between 9-13 November, and brought together passionate animators and audiences from all over the world.
Being at MAF is a uniquely uplifting experience - the amount of talent that surrounds you is both hypnotising and almost overwhelming. We found ourselves exhausted after long days of screenings and networking, but the festival’s spirit is so contagious that it inspires one to stay until all the late night events.
Speaking of inspiring, that is precisely what we felt seeing veteran animators supporting the works of young artists. Peter Lord, the co-founder of Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, could be found at seemingly every screening and social event at MAF. It proves that the community is knitted together by a sincere love for the art form of animation.
Credit: "Little Taste of Joy" by Jonathan Djob Nkondo
PIXELWISE prides itself on helping new artists find their place in the visual effects space, and attending MAF was our chance to learn how new animators are being embraced by an industry so fundamentally defined by change. What we found is that the community is built upon one immutable pillar: commitment.
The films screened at MAF this year were all, in one way or another, completely committed to pushing animation forward - whether through form and language, or narrative and theme. While the commitment of animators towards the form is unshakeable, their ways of expressing it are nearly infinite.
The short film screenings were exceptionally strong. MAF’s curators and programmers watched over 1500 short film submissions and condensed the list to surgically curated ‘mixtapes’. “BlackFrame Presents” brought visibility to black artists, “Worlds of Animation” broadened geographical reach, and “MAFter Dark” presented a pub-friendly selection of 18+ unorthodox shorts ranging from creepy ducks to stop motion horror. And those are only some of the mixtapes we had the chance to see - days at MAF are bursting with so much life that, sadly, it’s impossible to see it all.
Credit: "The Night Boots" by Pierre-Luc Granjon
But what we did get to watch was remarkable. From the colourful and abstract splendour of Jonathan Djob Nkondo’s “Little Taste of Joy” to sociopolitical reflections such as Ida Melum’s “Ovary-Acting” or Baz Sells’ "Two Black Boys in Paradise”. Countless spectacular projects, full of vision and, once again, commitment to the craft. It was particularly delightful to watch Oscar-qualifying shorts such as Pierre-Luc Granjon's "The Night Boots" and Vinnie Ann Bose’s “Sulaimani” on the big screen.
And shorts are only the beginning of it. We watched 5 feature films at MAF, each showcasing animation’s boundless creative and thematic range, including:
An international espionage romance set in the DPRK;
A slice-of-life Yakuza character study featuring a talking balsam flower;
A time-travelling coming-of-age story with ecological sub-themes;
A stop-motion fantastical exploration of the subconscious;
An intergalactic queer roadtrip with space princesses and bounty hunters.
For those still under the misconception that animation is a ‘genre’, MAF would be an eye-opener to the vastness of the medium. Even older experimental oddities such as Mamoru Oshii’s “Angel’s Egg” (1985), just recently restored in 4K for its 40th anniversary, were screened and introduced to new audiences - a true testament to the eclectic eye of MAF’s incredible programmers and curators.
Credit: "Desi Oon" by Suresh Eriyat
Some of the films screened at MAF simulated sensorial experiences and visual ideas that feel decades ahead of our contemporary collective imagination. From our perspective at PIXELWISE, MAF is where the animation of tomorrow is being revealed today - which is why we’ll be returning next year.
The Manchester Animation Festival proves that animation is in great hands - whether the hands that craft these beautiful films or the hands that curate their screenings.
Long live animation!
