I’m very pleased to share that I’ll be returning to Torres Vedras, Portugal, this year to serve on the grand jury for the 8th Edition of the BANG Awards International Animated Film Festival.
BANG has always been a special festival for me. It brings together animation, digital art, storytelling and experimentation in a way that feels both international and deeply connected to its community. This year’s theme, Youmanization, feels especially relevant at a moment when technology, identity and human connection are so closely intertwined.
This year, I’ll also be taking part as a performer, bringing live digital painting back into the festival context. That double role, as both juror and artist, makes this edition especially meaningful for me.
I’m looking forward to seeing how filmmakers from around the world respond to the theme. The best animated work has a remarkable ability to cross borders, shift perspective and express things that live-action cinema sometimes struggles to reach.
I’m also honoured to be part of this year’s jury alongside an international group of artists, filmmakers and animation professionals, including John Musker, Niccolò Gioia, Comfort Arthur, Nancy Denney-Phelps, Guilherme Bonini, Katie Bignell, Camila Kater, Ulisses Dias and others.
The screening process is about to begin, and I’m sure there will be some difficult decisions ahead. But that is always part of the pleasure of judging a festival like this: discovering new voices, unexpected visual languages and the many different ways animation continues to reinvent itself.
More soon from Torres Vedras.
No comments