Author: carlamackinnon

  • Podcast episode: Interview with Tess Martin

    In this new episode of the Animated Documentary podcast, Carla MacKinnon talks to artist, animator and filmmaker Tess Martin about her recent animated documentary projects How Now, House? (2025) and 1976: Search For Life (2023), her creative exploration of forms and materials, her love of Clio Barnard’s The Arbour (2010), and the impact of new…

  • Making ‘A is for Autism’: an interview with Tim Webb

    Tim Webb is a director and animator whose pioneering work in animated documentary continues to inspire new generations of filmmakers. He graduated from West Surrey College of Art and Design in 1986 and went onto make multi-award winning short films including A is for Autism (1992), Mr Price (2004), 15th February (1996), and Six of…

  • I Walk While Glaciers Melt: an interview with Lucia Lambarri Barberis

    Lucia Lambarri Barberis is a visual artist from Cusco, Peru, whose practice is rooted in walking through the Andes. Her 2024 short film I Walk While Glaciers Melt is a personal meditation on time and place, and has played at festivals including Tampere Film Festival, Tricky Women Tricky Realities, and the Science New Wave. We talked to Lucia…

  • Expanded Realities at Open City Documentary Festival

    Open City Documentary Festival is underway, and alongside a rich programme of documentary films the festival includes a selection of immersive and interactive documentary pieces, in their Expanded Realities exhibition.  In recent years, expanded strands at documentary festivals have become increasingly common. They offer a great way to experience what’s new in the creative convergence of animation, art, technology, and documentary film. The Open City exhibition showcases several…

  • Gaza’s Animation Workshops: Resilience in Creative Expression

    With a strong social media following and public screenings in festivals and events around the world, Haneen Koraz and her team are bringing animation from the women and children of Gaza to a global audience. Over the last year, the work of Haneen Koraz and her team in Gaza has grown in prominence and profile.…

  • Watch 2023 LIAF Animated docs panel online

    London International Animation Festival has a rich history of showcasing and championing animated documentary work through screenings, panels, and events. Their 2023 online panel, Animated Documentaries – Drawing a Line over Reality, offers insights into the form of animated documentary form directors including Jonathan Hodgson, Samantha Moore, Mary Martins, and Alex Widdowson, and is hosted…

  • Animated documentaries at LIAF 2024

    The London International Animation Festival (LIAF) has been showcasing animated nonfiction for over a decade, and was one of the first UK film festivals to give animated documentary its own curated programme in 2008. The festival has premiered animated documentaries to packed cinemas, and has also explored the boundaries of the form through its panels,…

  • Eternal Spring

    Eternal Spring

    Eternal Spring, Jason Loftus’s feature-length largely animated documentary about the 2002 hijacking of a state TV signal in China by members of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, is currently playing at Bertha Dochouse in London and at other cinemas across the world. The film chronicles a small group of Falun Gong practitioners, whose aim…

  • Launching a new podcast…

    Here at AnimatedDocumentary.com we are trying out a new podcast format as part of our mission to offer information, promotion, and critical discussion around the animated documentary form. We’re planning to release an occasional podcast featuring discussion on animated documentary with filmmakers, academics, programmers, commissioners, and commentators. In this first episode, team members Alys Scott-Hawkins,…

  • On UK art schools and animated documentaries

    I recently conducted a study of short UK-produced animated documentaries programmed in film festivals between 2015 and 2020.  Of 146 films, almost a third were student productions. In many cases these films emerged from art universities, and they were often directed, researched, produced, designed, and animated by a single filmmaker. It got me thinking about animated…