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 13th festival in 2023, which is currently scheduled to take place between 3 and 5 November in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

and 6 and 12 November in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. 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, b ...

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 ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

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

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, 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 cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

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:

and

. 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 is a 2013 Japanese anime drama film written, directed and edited by Makoto Shinkai, animated by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It stars Miyu Irino and Kana Hanazawa, and features music by Daisuke Kashiwa instead of Tenmon, who ha ...

'' director

Makoto Shinkai , known as , is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, author, and manga artist. Shinkai began his career as a video game animator with Nihon Falcom in 1996, and gained recognition as a filmmaker with the release of the original video animation (OVA) ' ...

and ''

Promare is a 2019 Japanese animated 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 Sanzigen, and music by H ...

'' director

Hiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese key animator and animation director and one of the co-founders 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 a ...

. 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, television and film 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) and ''Liz and the Blue Bird'' (2018 ...

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

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

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-aut ...

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 at the

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

and the Discovery Film Festival at the DCA. The Jury Award, called the Golden Partridge is named after Andrew Partridge, the founder of the festival.

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 dir ...

in Edinburgh. The

Edinburgh Filmhouse The Edinburgh Filmhouse was 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 cu ...

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

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

and 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 will be held in November for the first time.

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 was donated to the

and the

. 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 te ...

'' * '' 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 Japanese animated science fiction 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 ...

'' * ''

Penguin Highway is a Japanese science fiction novel written by Tomihiko Morimi, published in 2010. A manga adaptation was serialized in Media Factory's ''Monthly Comic Alive'' from March 2018 to February 2019, and an anime film adaptation by Studio Color ...

'' * ''

Production I.G is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise, founded on December 15, 1987, by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. The letters I and G derive from the names of the company founders: producer Mitsuhisa Ish ...

Short Film Collection'' * ''

Weathering with You is a 2019 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film produced by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It depicts a high school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo and befriends an orphan girl who has the ability to control the w ...

(''featuring a commentary by

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

Science SARU Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

) 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 ''Josee, the Tiger and the Fish'', whi ...

'' (

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 homepageAnime Limited Website
Animation film festivals in the United Kingdom Film festivals in Edinburgh Film festivals in Glasgow Film festivals established in 2010