| Director: | Joanna Quinn |
| Starring: | Menna Trussler Brendan Charleson Joanna Quinn Mali Ann Rees |
| Music: | Benjamin Talbott |
| Country: | United Kingdom Canada |
| Language: | English |
| Producer: | Les Mills Michael Fukushima |
| Editing: | Mia Rose Goddard |
| Studio: | Beryl Productions International Ltd. The National Film Board of Canada |
| Runtime: | 16 minutes |
| Distributor: | The Animation Showcase |
Affairs of the Art is a 2021 British-Canadian traditional animation short film directed by Joanna Quinn and written by Les Mills. Quinn also co-stars as the voice of Beverly.
The film has been screened at Film Festivals worldwide since February 2021 including Palm Springs ShortFest in the US, winning 26 International Awards including prizes in Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film[1] for the 94th Academy Awards and nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation.[2] The short was part of the world touring screening The Animation Showcase 2021.
The short film follows the character of Beryl and her eccentric family. Beryl, the working-class heroine, first appeared in the 1987 animated short film Girls Night Out, Body Beautiful (1990) and Dreams & Desires: Family Ties (2006). Affairs of the Art focuses on Beryl and her family's fixations and Beryl's own obsession with drawing and her determination to become an artiste of note.[3]
The film is co-created between Joanna Quinn and Les Mills. Quinn is the film's director, storyboard artist and lead animator and Mills wrote the screen play, did the colour design and produced the film. It is their first new film featuring the lead character of Beryl since 2007. They began planning another Beryl film straight after their last film Dreams & Desires: Family Ties, but it took 15 years[4] before Beryl returned to the screen in a new film mainly because of major commitments to producing many TV commercials in the intervening years. The 16-minute-film was traditionally animated on a lightbox and took more than 24000 hand drawn frames (fps) to produce.[5] The animation drawings were scanned into the computer, coloured in TVPaint and finally composited in After Effects.[6] In this film there's a lot of lip sync, with a focus on breaking down the patterns of the lips movements.[7]
Since its launch, the film has been selected in more than 65 festival selections around the world:
| 2021 | Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival | Best animation film[8] | |
| Annecy International Animation | Special Distinction for Direction | ||
| Kaboom Animation Festival | Best Short Film[9] | ||
| Los Angeles Animation Festival | Best director[10] | ||
| Aspen Shortsfest | Jury Award in the Comedy category[11] | ||
| Palm Springs Shortsfest | Best Animation Short Film[12] | ||
| Insomnia Animation Festival | The Profnastil Prize for Best International Short Animation | ||
| Fantoche Animation Festival | International Audience Prize | ||
| Valladolid International Film Festival | Golden Spike for Best Short Film[13] | ||
| Chicago International Film Festival | Gold Hugo for Best Animated Short Film[14] | ||
| BAFTA | BAFTA Award for Best British Short Animation | ||
| Academy Awards | Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film[15] | [16] |