GIRAF brings Calgary Toon Confab online in November

The longest running animation festival in Western Canada, GIRAF is expanding beyond the borders of Alberta for its 2021 edition with a nationwide online streaming event, featuring over 90 short films from around the world, feature films and speeches by artists, including 27 Canadian premieres. The Quickdraw Animation Society presents the 17th Giant Glow Resonant Animation Festival (GIRAF) from 19 to 28 November.

The featured artist for 2021 is Renee Zhan (Or black hole, renepoptosis), whose imaginative shorts have won major awards at Sundance, SXSW and TIFF, as well as being screened at all major animation festivals. Zhan will host a retrospective of his work, along with an online workshop.

Anonymous Instagram account 24 memes per second curated a program of experimental short films and will host a meme-making workshop for animation fans inspired by their unique vision (and encyclopedic knowledge) of the medium.

GIRAF will be screened 86 short films (and increasing) in 11 screening packages. Over a quarter of this year's titles will premiere at the Canadian festival, including films from Joanna Priestley, Grace Lee e Einar Baldvin. The lineup also includes recent films by leading independent animation voices such as Yoriko Mizushiri, Felix Colgrave, Lia Bertels, Terril Calder, Emily Pelstring e Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León.

In addition to the latest from world-renowned artists, there's a taste of animation history on the menu with the screening of the 35th anniversary of the acclaimed feature film by Czech legend Jiří Barta. Krysar, from a brand new 35mm scan. This dark retelling of the Pied Piper fairy tale is heavily inspired by German Expressionism and medieval artwork.

Another special screening will feature Swedish director Sofie Edvardsson's bittersweet romantic comedy Top 3, about perpetual list-maker Anton, whose burgeoning relationship with David begins to go wrong when he realizes their life dreams may be in total opposition. The 45-minute piece won the Audience Award at Outfest LA 2019.

Outside the film, participants can explore video game animation in a panel with a mix of leading studio artists and independent developers: Asemta Bhattad (Ubisoft Turin), Craig adams (Superbrothers), Pedro Medeiros (Celeste, TowerFall) e Morgan Price (EA Vancouver).

The festival artwork and trailer for GIRAF 17 were created by the Calgary-based artist and animator Molly Little.

As with last year's Alberta edition, this year's festival will be on the schedule watch the holidays which takes place on GIRAF's Discord channel, where audience members and directors can chat about their favorite movies for a more social viewing experience. Or, viewers can take advantage of the on-demand offerings whenever they want, gorge on all the films at once, or space them out over the 10-day festival.

All films, interviews and artist talks will be subtitled, thanks to the support of Accessibility Sponsor: Calgary Economic Development and the efforts of Calgary-based Binder Productions.

Individual screening / discussion tickets ($ 10 each) and full festival passes ($ 60, includes memorial program, posters and stickers) for GIRAF 17 online are now available at giraffest.ca.

GIRAF 17 Festival Trailer by Molly Little from Quickdraw Animation on Vimeo.