Flip Animation Festival

FLIP is an animation festival primarily hosted by the Light House Media Centre in Wolverhampton, UK. It is one of two festivals hosted by Light House, the other of which is Deaffest. Official literature for the festival says that FLIP occurs annually at the beginning of November and attracts submissions from more than 30 countries world wide. As well as screening the selected open submissions, FLIP also consists of special screenings, talks from professionals within the animation world, workshops, industry panels, portfolio reviews and competitions. The festival was set up, managed and programmed by Peter McLuskie between 2004 and 2011. It grew out of the 'Animation Forum', also based at Light House and which was later rebranded as Animation Forum West Midlands and found a home at Birmingham City University. In 2009 the festival was awarded a Black Country Tourism Award for Event of the Year.

Based in Wolverhampton, the festival began in 2004 and features a range of events from educational workshops for young people to experimental animation for grown ups; from industry led panels to feature film screenings and from international showcases and retrospectives of short films to spotlights on animation studios. FLIP is organised and hosted by Light House Media Centre in partnership with the University of Wolverhampton's School of Art and Design and School of Computing & IT, Wolverhampton Art Gallery. It is part funded by UK Film Council (National Lottery) through Screen West Midlands; Wolverhampton City Council; University of Wolverhampton; Business Link West Midlands and Animation Forum West Midlands.

The exhibitions curated for FLIP tend to communicate the animation message through different media/outlets. They have a continuing partnership with Wolverhampton Art Gallery who programme specific works on site as part of the Festival. FLIP 2007 saw an exhibition of original puppets used in films such as The Corpse Bride, Mars Attacks! and Andy Pandy, and the puppet designer Nick Roberson answered questions from the audience. During FLIP 2008, the Light House building was home to large, moving, kinetic sculptures, by London based artist Steve Hutton. As well as this, there was a screening of animated Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s followed by a talk on Doctor Who animation led by industry experts. 2009 saw a studio spotlight on the Glasgow-based Axis Animation who showcased some of their work and then answered questions from the audience. The other studio spotlight that year was from ArthurCox studios who also presented some of their work and then held a discussion with the audience. 2010's festival hosted a presentation from the creators of the LittleBigPlanet games, Media Molecule, as well as a display from Light House Media Centre's own animator is residence, Drew Roper, including his set for his award winning film 'A History of Denim'.

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