Scotland Loves Animation is a charity that promotes anime in Scotland. They hold an annual film festival called "Scotland Loves Anime" (often abbreviated to SLA) in October and work with other festivals to programme anime content into their schedules. It will celebrate its 15th festival in 2024, which will take place between 1 and 10 November 2024. In May 2020,

Anime Limited Anime Limited, also known as All the Anime, is a British anime distribution company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It releases anime for British, Irish, French and other European audiences. The company was established in 2012 by Andrew Partridge, ...

launched a new online festival in partnership with Scotland Loves Animation, called Screen Anime. This service hosted 4 films and one TV series monthly. It was available in the UK and

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

only. The service ended on 25 May 2021, as cinemas reopened in the UK.

Background

Scotland Loves Animation is a charity that promotes

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, through hosting an annual film festival October and partnering with

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent ...

s and other independent cinemas to screen anime-related content during the rest of the year. The festival was established in 2010 by Andrew Partridge, who later went on to start the Glasgow-based anime distributor

. The main festival is based across of Scotland's two biggest cities:

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. They host Education Days that run as part of the festival where the public can meet industry professionals in a full day of talks, panel discussions, and workshops. Previous guests have included '' The Garden of Words'' director

Makoto Shinkai , known as , is a Japanese filmmaker and novelist. He is known for his anime feature films produced with CoMix Wave Films. Shinkai began his career as a video game animator with Nihon Falcom in 1996, and gained recognition as a filmmaker with ...

and ''

Promare is a 2019 Japanese animated science fiction action film co-produced by Trigger and XFLAG. It was directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and written by Kazuki Nakashima. It features character and mecha designs by Shigeto Koyama, 3DCG animation by Sanzig ...

'' director

Hiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese anime director, animator and co-founder of Studio Trigger. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. Prior to founding Trigger, he was an animator and director at ...

. The festival also regularly invites directors to host Q&A sessions after their films have been screened. Previous Q&A sessions have included

Naoko Yamada is a Japanese animator and director. Working at Kyoto Animation, she directed the anime series ''K-On!'' (2009–2010) and ''Tamako Market'' (2013), and the anime films '' A Silent Voice'' (2016), ''Liz and the Blue Bird'' (2018) and '' The Colo ...

after the European Premiere of '' K-On! the Movie'' and

Tomoki Kyoda (born 1970) is a Japanese animation director and animator born in Osaka, Japan. Formerly a graphic designer, he nurtured the dream of becoming an animator from childhood. After doing various works supervising drawing continuity, he joined the B ...

after the European Premiere of '' Eureka Seven: Hi-Evolution Movie 1''. In addition to this,

Jonathan Clements Jonathan Michael Clements (born 9 July 1971) is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Koxinga and Qin Shi Huang, as well as monthly opinion columns for '' Neo'' magazine. He is also the co-au ...

usually speaks before each film screening to share his insight about the director and films being shown. They have also screened films in partnership with other festivals such as the

Glasgow Film Festival The Glasgow Film Festival is an annual film festival based in Glasgow, Scotland. The festival began in 2005. By 2015, the festival had seen audience figures top 40,000 for two consecutive years. It is now considered one of the top film festivals ...

at the

Glasgow Film Theatre The Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) is an independent cinema in the city centre of Glasgow. It occupies a purpose-built cinema building, first opened in 1939, and now protected as a category B listed building. History and architecture Predecesso ...

and the

Discovery Film Festival Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

at the DCA. The festival has two awards, the jury award and the audience award, awarded to one of a selection of the festival's films that year. The jury award, often referred to as the Golden Partridge after festival director Andrew Partridge, involves a panel of judges who tend to see the films for the first time alongside the audience and, after seeing all the films in competition, debate privately and vote on which film to give the award to. The audience award as the name suggests involves audiences rating films after seeing them using an online form (earlier festivals utilised lollipop (popsicle) sticks being deposited in containers marked with the ratings on). These ratings are counted and averaged to identify the winner.

Event locations and venues

The "Scotland Loves Anime" film festival takes place every October in

and

. The festival typically runs over a weekend in

, and over a week in

. In

they will show more films due to the greater number of film slots available. Because of the limited runs of anime films in cinemas outside of Japan, this is often the only chance to see many of these films at the cinema. Screenings for popular films are often sold-out long before the date of showing. The festival is held in the

and the in

The Cameo ''The Cameo'' (French: ''Le camée'') is a 1913 French silent drama film directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Emmy Lynn, Henry Roussel Henry Roussel (; 1875–1946), also known as Henry Roussell, was a French silent film actor, film direct ...

in Edinburgh. The

Edinburgh Filmhouse The Edinburgh Filmhouse is a cinema located in Edinburgh, Scotland, which opened in 1979. It was home to the world's oldest continually running film festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival. The cinema closed in October 2022 when its pare ...

hosted the Edinburgh festival from 2010 to 2021 and the Belmont Filmhouse hosted the Aberdeen festival from 2015 to 2020, but in October 2022 the

Centre for the Moving Image The Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) is a registered charity comprising Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Filmhouse and, since April 2014, the Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen. Its stated aim is to "''provide a national focus for c ...

went into administration, closing these cinemas. Other events have included a festival in

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

and

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

, along with a touring festival across the country. The latter was brought back in 2021 and saw various Picturehouse locations around the country screen the most popular films of the 2021 festival. The 2023 festival was held in November for the first time. In 2024, the festival expanded to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, with a weekend of screenings held at Picturehouse Central.

Previous festivals

2020 Festival

Due to the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic, the 2020 Scotland Loves Anime festival was held online. A small number of physical screenings were scheduled to be held, but they were all ultimately cancelled. The online part of the film festival was held in partnership with Screen Anime, a streaming service set up by

earlier in the year. The online portion of the festival was held between 25 October 2020 and 25 November 2020. Two-thirds of the funds raised from the online festival were donated to the

and

. The films that screened as part of Scotland Loves Anime on Screen Anime were: * ''Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow'' * ''

Love Live! The School Idol Movie is a 2015 Japanese animated youth school musical film. The film is part of the '' Love Live! School Idol Project'' multimedia series by Sunrise, Lantis and ''Dengeki G's Magazine'', taking place after the second season of the 2013-2014 anime t ...

'' * '' Lupin III vs. Detective Conan: The Movie'' * '' Lupin III: The Secret of Mamo'' * '' Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (TV Series)'' * ''Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine - Fujiko's Lie'' * ''Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine - Goemon's Blood Spray'' * ''Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine - Jigen's Gravestone'' * ''

Patema Inverted is a 2013 science fiction anime film written and directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura. It was released in Japan on November 9, 2013. A four-episode original net animation (ONA) series, ''Patema Inverted: Beginning of the Day'', streamed in 2012. The ...

'' * '' Penguin Highway'' * ''

Production I.G is a Japanese animation studio. Headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Production I.G was founded on December 15, 1987, by producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and character designer Takayuki Goto as I.G Tatsunoko, a branch studio of the animation giant Ta ...

Short Film Collection'' * ''

Weathering with You is a 2019 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, produced by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It follows a 16-year-old high school boy, Hodaka Morishima, who runs away from his troubled rur ...

(''featuring a commentary by

) The digital festival also featured two in progress films, ''Inu-Oh'' (

Science SARU , stylized as Science SARU, is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Kichijōji, Musashino, Tokyo. Established on February 4, 2013, by producer Eunyoung Choi and director Masaaki Yuasa, the studio has produced four feature films and five a ...

) and ''

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a 1984 Japanese short story by author Seiko Tanabe. It was first published in the June 1984 issue of ''Monthly Kadokawa''. It was later included alongside various stories in the short story collection of the same name, which was published o ...

'' (

Bones A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, an ...

). The physical festival was scheduled to be run on 7–8 November in

and

and 14–15 November in

, but these screenings were cancelled due to the tightening of Coronavirus restrictions throughout the UK. '' Lupin III: The First'' and '' On-Gaku: Our Sound'' were scheduled to be screened at these cinemas

References

{{reflist

External links

Scotland Loves Animation homepage
Animation film festivals in the United Kingdom Film festivals in Edinburgh Film festivals in Glasgow Film festivals established in 2010