The London International Film Festival (LIAF)
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LIAF is Britain’s premier showcase for independent animation, bringing the richness of the artform to the public and industry in London and across the globe. Attracting audiences from children to industry experts and everyone in-between the festival programmes one of the largest collection of independent animation gathered at any festival in the world and is the largest festival of its type in the UK.
Since 2005 LIAF has been run in partnership with The Film and Video Workshop. Festival Director, Nag Vladermersky, and his team run the entire festival from our offices in Camden. We provide technical support, volunteer staff, desk space and a general base for LIAF HQ. From 2008 -2011 FVW helped raise £50,00 from the UK Film Councils Festivals Fund (LIAF was one of only 7 festivals to get this funding) to help move it to the next stage.
The first LIAF was staged in 2004 at The Other Cinema in Soho with the support of a small lottery grant from Awards For All. It was a relatively modest affair, screening 70 films curated into a dozen programmes to an enthusiastic audience in a 150-seater cinema. Since then, through the passion of programmers and audiences alike, the festival has grown to be one of the largest and most diverse animation festivals in the world – in 2011 screening over 290 films in 4 cinemas across London including the prestigious Barbican, reaching nearly 3,000 people in highly charged full houses. In 2011 the inaugural LIAF industry event was launched, in conjunction with Skillset, to huge success, where members of the industry talked about diverse topics such as sound and animation, continued professional development, the use of animation in other industries and the array of software options available to animators.
Due to a significant level of interest from audiences around the UK, LIAF now also tours highlights of the festival all year-round to cinemas from every corner of the country as well as several overseas festivals. The screenings include British premieres, Oscar nominees and winners and are a snapshot of the best, most recent animated films from around the world.
