Awards:
British Animation Awards, 2018-2020, UK - Best Post Graduate Animation
Royal Television Society Student Television Awards 2019, UK - Jury Prize for Best British Student Film
Royal Television Society Student Television Awards 2019, UK - Best Postgraduate Animation
Spark Animation 2018, Canada - winner of the Women In Animation's diversity award
San Francisco Independent Film Festival 2019, USA - Audience Award for Best Animation
British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Awards, 2020, UK: Runner -Up Essay/Experimental (Best Practice Research Portfolio)
NAHEMI Eat Our Shorts Awards, 2019, UK winner ARRI best film
NAHEMI Eat Our Shorts Awards, 2019, UK winner Audience Award.
Papaya Rocks International Film Festival, 2019, UK - winner best director
Vimeo Staff Pick 2020
Short of the Week 2020
London International Animation Festival 2018, UK - Jury: Highly Commended
Cinanima 2018, Portugal - special mention for Best Student Film Gaston Roch Award
Finally I’ve made a trailer for my latest short animated documentary ‘Meeting’. It will be start to shown around online festivals starting from May (thanks to Covid cancelling all the festivals this year 😬) A huge thank you to my animation artist Jenny Lewis, musician Akos Lustyik and the sound designer Bal Sound. Also my participants Selcen, Taha, Beyza and Özer who let me share a glimpse of their experience. I hope this child of mine will be embraced 🤗❤️🎉 . . #illustration #animation #shortdoc #animateddocumentary #film #animatedfilm #docs (at Istanbul, Turkey) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-y2fW8g-B5/?igshid=2jl1asmumg5v
Doing some story boarding today while at home with the kitties #storyboard #animateddocumentary #animation #art #artistsoninstagram #papercutter https://www.instagram.com/p/BzvcdKnHayy/?igshid=lkpf3usb9t7l
So many women don’t speak out in fear of not being believed. So many women are subjected to domestic violence and coercive control. Please consider donating to this project on Kickstarter to make a heroic and tragic story be told and heard by the masses. Thank you ❤️ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jennifer42/jennifer-42-an-animated-documentary-feature #EndDomesticViolence #CoerciveControl #BelieveWomen #Jennifer42 #AnimatedDocumentary #Support #Donate #Kickstarter #Help #ThankYou https://www.instagram.com/p/BohRqvSlLF4/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=13nrcus4nxcqx
Director’s statement:
Drawing on Autism is an investigation into the ethics of representation in animated documentaries. Although I am neurodivergent, I’m not autistic, so when working with my anonymous participant, an autistic friend, I needed to be mindful of well-rehearsed and problematic autism tropes. These tropes seem to say more about the desires and needs of neurotypical audiences or filmmakers than they do about the autistic subjects. Moreover, animation presents a distinct set of ethical dilemmas. Without the mechanical indifference of a camera, the act of observation is substituted for expressive or symbolic representation. A mode of representation where the artist is responsible for how the documentary participant looks, where they appear, and what they do. Through collaborative feedback I attempt to share these responsibilities with my participant, while making use of positional and textual reflexivity to equip my audiences with the information they need to scrutinise my documentary interventions.
- Alex Widdowson
Awards and Accolades:
Winner - UK Research & Innovation: Research in Film Awards 2021 - Best Doctoral and Early Career Film
Winner - Rising of Lucitania AnimaDoc Film Festival 2022 - Best AnimaDoc Blue Ribend Award (Student Jury)
Nominated - Edinburgh International Film Festival 2022 - Norman McLaren Award for Best British Animation
Nominated - UK Research & Innovation: Research in Film Awards 2021 - Best Animated Film
Official Selection:
Rhode Island International Film Festival 2021 (Premier)
Raindance 2021
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2021
New Orleans Film Festival 2021
Berlin Festival of Animation 2021
Spark Animation 2021
Factual Animation Film Festival 2021
Montreal International Animation Festival 2021
Big Cartoon Festival 2021
London Short Film Festival 2022
Fargo Film Festival 2022
Cinemagic ON THE PULSE Short Film Festival 2022
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2022