Edinburgh International Film Festival 2012: Animation

With animation now a key feature of the Manipulate Festival, it’s clear this diverse genre can offer something far more complex than childish cartoons. Of the EIFF’s six presentations, McLaren Animation 1, 2 and 3 are collections of shorts competing for the McLaren Award for New British Animation. In McLaren Animation 1 the characters are put through ideological and moral conundrums pertaining to self-awareness, in McLaren Animation 2 the films concentrate on social and sexual interaction and ideas of the heart, and McLaren Animation 3 is the family category. If unimpressed by British talent, International Animation will exhibit a number of films from around the globe, including the final instalment of the Everything Will Be OK trilogy from American Don Hertzfeldt, creator of the Academy Award nominated short Rejected. Hertzfeldt’s often bleak but always ambitious work, blending human issues with relatively simple animation, is an ideal example of how it’s the ideas presented, not the technical ability, that resonates most with people.