Manchester Animation Festival

This year’s festival will be in-venue 10-14 November, with some events in the festival recorded and being available online with some of the short film screenings from 15 – 30 November.

If your film is selected you will be contacted to discuss being in a selection of shorts that will be available online, these screenings will be hosted on a secure site for those who purchase tickets or a festival pass and available for a short period of time.

We will keep our newsletter and social accounts up to date with any news.

Manchester Animation Festival has become the only dedicated animation festival in the UK to have this honour and joins only a handful of other UK film festival events that qualify.

Recipients of the festival’s Short Film Award will be eligible for consideration in the Short Films competition of the Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.

If your film is selected you will be contacted to discuss being in a selection of shorts that will be available online, these screenings will be hosted on a secure site for those who purchase tickets or a festival pass and available for a short period of time.

As part of the T&Cs, we reserve the right to include a short clip of the film as part of a festival trailer/promotional video, this clip will be either selected by you or the festival team and will be appropriate for its use.

All content screened at MAF will be ran through state-of-the-art DRM security that prevents users from downloading, copying, redistributing, or converting content to ensure streams only play back on trusted devices with a valid session.

All of MAF’s content played through Eventive is protected with FairPlay, WideVine, and PlayReady, the same Digital Rights Management technology used by Disney+, iTunes, and Netflix.

To ensure the health of the worldwide shorts distribution circuit for our featured films, all online film programmes will be Geoblocked to the UK.

Films have to be submitted and received by Friday 26 July 2024.

Yes, provided the film was completed after Friday 28 July 2023.

You may submit your film to one category only. Films must be under 30 minutes in length.

• Short Films: Films not made by a student or person under the age of 16.
• Student Films: Films created by undergraduate and post-graduate students.
• Commissioned Films: Can be educational or scientific films, music videos or for advertising or promotional purposes. Commissioned films must have the permission of the rights owner before submission.
• Immersive Films: Films that abandon traditional screening conditions and opt for an immersive format, this could be VR (interactive and non interactive), AR or 360° films.

We are also accepting nominations for the Industry Excellence Awards, these are in the following categories:

• Storyboarding
• Writing
• Character Animation
• Character Design

We are also accepting Feature Film submissions, please contact the festival team directly to discuss.

As well as celebrating films, we focus on the industry by awarding individual people for their work and practice, highlighting the artistry and talent that contributes to these films. This is an award for individuals that have shown excellence within a production that has been commissioned and is not a solo project or artists film.

Nominations must be for a piece of work that has been commissioned by a third party or broadcaster (television or online). It can not be a student film or have been commissioned as part of advancement in an academic qualification process, nor is it an independent project created without the input of any third party commissioner. Applying for and receiving funding for a film pre conceived by the filmmaker does not qualify as a commission.

Nominations MUST have the permission of the rights holder of the project and the nominee to enter into this award.

As scriptwriters we understand you often work in pairs and so two people can be under one nomination for scriptwriting. All collaborations will require a little clarification in the form.

We’ll ask for basic information about the film, including a synopsis, technique and at least one image. We’ll need information about the lead contact should the film be selected, we also need this should your film win an award as we’ll need to contact you to see if you can either attend the awards or send an acceptance video. We’ll need a screener of the film, provided as a online link and technical details about the screening format and aspect ratio.

This information will be provided through Film Freeway for all film competition entrants.

If you’re submitting for an Industry Excellence Award we’ll need some supporting documentation in the submission process. Depending on the category, this should include a copy of the storyboard or animatic; the script; design work and development sketches; clips of the nominees work on character animation.

If your film contains non-English dialogue, we require that you include on-screen subtitles. If your film is mostly in English and you are intentionally leaving out subtitles for non-English dialogue, you do not need to provide on-screen subtitles, though if they are available, we may request these should your film be successful.

If English hard-of-hearing/descriptive subtitles are available, please let us know.

Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (HOH) are created by adding information to the subtitles track that is not accessible to deaf or hearing-impaired audiences. This can include background sounds and noises, and stylistic features such as speaker identification like names, colour coding, and positioning, that helps the viewers identify the speakers with ease.

We want to make MAF as accessible as possible to all audiences so please do consider this when creating subtitles for your film.

Yes, as long as your film will be complete by 1 September 2024. Unless your film is at an advanced stage of post-production, it might be better to hold off. Please ensure this is stated in your submission.

There is no limit to the number of films you can submit, but each one needs submitting individually via film freeway.

There is no limit to the number of Industry Excellence Nominations you can submit, but each one needs submitting individually.

Our preferred in-venue screening format is DCP, these must be sent via online transfer. Should this not be available for November our technical partners will be in touch to discuss options.

All films are carefully checked and processed before screening at the festival. Please be aware that the information you provide when you submit your film will ensure it is presented in the correct format. We will ask for a backup copy of the film on h264 or HD mov file.

For online screenings we require a h264, .mp4 or .mov format.

All screening material must be at the festival offices by Friday 27 September 2024.

We will inform successful entrants by Friday 20 September 2024. Please let us know if your e-mail address or contact details change in the meantime.

We usually only screen the Films for Children selection on Sun 10 Nov. All other short films will screen during the festival in venues between Mon 11 – Thu 14 November 2024.

We work with some partner venues and community groups to screen the films to wider audiences, these would happen on the same dates as the festival or slightly after.

If any MAF shorts tour to other venues around the UK, the team will be in contact to confirm with you in advance.

Manchester Animation Festival does not cover screening fees. Final screening versions should be sent via our technical partner digitally however if not possible, you will need to cover the cost of shipment to the festival, Manchester Animation Festival will pay the return carriage only at the completion of the festival by regular airmail (or forwarded to another destination nominated by the filmmaker).

If your film is successful, we can offer one free festival pass for the director or named member of the filmmaking team.

The Manchester Animation Festival 2024 will be on 10-14 November 2024 in-venues across Manchester. Online events will run from the 15-30 November.

The films will be shortlisted by the festival team, the films in the official selection will then be judged during the festival by a panel of respected industry professionals and is entirely independent from the festival organisers.

Yes we usually have a Panorama for Short films and Student films, these are not in competition but allow us to show a more diverse range of work offering an overview of the animation landscape each year.

Since 2015 we have accepted submissions through the MAF website. In 2022 we have joined over 12,000 film festivals on Film Freeway. The platform provides the administrative support our growing festival requires in order to accept submissions.

As with the vast majority of film festivals we have introduced a charge for submitting films. This charge assists in the staffing, administrative and running costs of the festival and for manufacture of our award trophies.

Newsletter subscribers and social media followers will benefit from submission discounts and other offers promoted through those platforms.