Top 4: Manchester Animation Festival 2018 at Home

The Manchester Animation festival returns to HOME in November 2018, showcasing the year’s most innovative animation. Top picks include the UK premiere of Santiago Caicedo’s Virus Tropical on Wednesday 14 November. Paola is a young Latin-American girl fighting for independence and struggling to fit in against a world shaped by crisis. Enticing visuals are inspired by a graphic novel memoir by Colombian-Ecuadorian cartoonist Powerpaola and boasts a uniquely feminine perspective. You can also catch This Magnificent Cake! (Tue 13 Nov – pictured), a collection of tales about the colonisation of Africa at the end of the 19th Century. Perspectives of a king, a pygmy, a ruined businessman, a lost porter, and a young deserter are conveyed in stunning minimal, yet refined, stop-motion. The film is followed by Q&A with co-director Marc James Roels, the man behind award-winning shorts Mompelaar and A Gentle Creature. Wes Anderson’s tender eccentricism is an unmissable addition to any animation fest this year. The wide-screen wacko’s recent return to stop-motion with Isle of Dogs screens on Thursday 15 November. You’d be barking mad to miss the epic story of Atari Kobayashi and his search for this bodyguard-dog – and this sessions includes a ‘behind the scenes’ talk with some of the film’s animators. Finally, we recommend the whole Family Fun Day on Sunday 11 November – which includes the chance to make your own Lego stop motion film.

Sun 11 – Fri 16 Nov, HOME Mcr, 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester, M15 4FN, times and prices vary, www.manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk