For our first BFI Film Academy Lab of the year, we’re welcoming Astrid Goldsmith, an international award-winning stop-motion animation director (Red Rover, Quarantine), who makes puppet films about angry animals in her garage in Folkestone, works as an animator for Netflix and is developing her first feature-length project with BFI backing.
Sign up to hear her discuss working within big industry productions as well as on her DIY animation projects and get the inside story on her creative process and what made her films get recognised by festivals and funders!
Astrid will be in conversation with Amber Hyams, previously Director of Watersprite Film Festival. A recent graduate, Amber has just returned from writing and filming in South America.
About BFI Film Academy Labs
BFI Film Academy Labs are online events for 16-25 year olds to gain industry insight and get professional advice and support to develop their own film programming and filmmaking practices. Programmed by the Young Film Programmers’ Network (South East) they are delivered as practical masterclasses, workshops and networking sessions.
This session will be live-captioned, we will provide instructions on how to access the captions at the beginning of the event. If you have any questions about the event please get in touch at: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk
You can watch recordings of some of our previous Labs on the ICO YouTube channel.
Speakers
Astrid Goldsmith
Stop-Motion Animation Director (Red Rover, Quarantine)
Astrid Goldsmith is an award-winning stop-motion animation director, based in Folkestone. While working as a commercial model maker for film, tv and advertising – making everything from the Duracell Bunny to vibrating alien slugs for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – she completed her debut short film, Squirrel Island, in 2016. Squirrel Island went on to compete at some of the world’s top film festivals – including Clermont-Ferrand, Tampere, LSFF, Brest, and Warsaw Film Festival – and won several awards for Best Animation. In 2018 she was selected for the prestigious BFI / BBC4 Animation 2018 talent scheme, designed to support the UK’s most exciting emerging animators. In just 20 weeks she completed her 13-minute commissioned film, Quarantine, which premiered at the BFI in November 2018, was broadcast on BBC4 in December, and was subsequently nominated for Debut Director at the Edinburgh TV Festival’s New Voice Awards. Since then, Astrid has completed a BFI Network-funded short film, Red Rover, which was Oscar long-listed. She has also directed a number of commercials and music videos. She is currently in development on her stop-motion feature film. She is also working on her debut graphic novel, which will be published by Jonathan Cape in 2024. In 2022, she joined the writing team for a new Netflix animation show.