The London International Animation Festival (LIAF 2025)
Destigmatising Mental Health (15+) + filmmaker discussion
Still from ‘Dull Spots of Greenish Colour’ Dir: Sasha Svirsky 10'40
Doors: 6pm
Animated shorts are a powerful medium for addressing mental health issues, offering a unique and often visually compelling way to explore complex emotions and inner struggles. These films vividly depict experiences like anxiety, depression, trauma and personal growth, often capturing the nuance of these conditions in ways that words alone cannot. By destigmatising mental health struggles the films also serve as a valuable tool for raising awareness, fostering conversations and promoting understanding about emotional well-being. And apart from anything else - they will make you laugh and make you cry!
Several of the filmmakers will be in attendance after the screening to talk about these astounding and heart-felt films. Panellists to be announced in November.
Total running time: 90 mins (60 mins + 30 mins panel discussion)
Films:
What Does it Feel Like to Have ADHD?
Mia is 9 years old and she is going to tell you how it feels to have ADHD.
UK 2024 Dir: Robert Glassford 1'10
My Dad’s name was Huw. He was an alcoholic poet
An attempt to unravel the state of mind of the filmmaker's late alcoholic father, through the poems he left behind.
UK 2019 Dir: Freddie Griffiths 7'40
Paradise Man (II)
Paradise Man searches for meaning in an unknowable universe.
USA 2025 Dir: Jordan Michael Blake 12'10
Hole
Mo is an adult with autism spectrum disorder who spends a lot of time in their brain. Today, a hole started following them.
Canada 2018 Dir: Gil Goletski 6'00
Kinder than Cuts
An AniJam protest against the devastating cuts to pip and disability benefits. Animators from across the UK created a 5-15 second piece each responding to the theme kindness against cuts.
UK 2025 Dir: Kate Jessop, Sarah Gomes Harris 4'00
Hi! How are you?
A painful, humorous yet caring exploration of human behaviour.
France 2022 Dir: Gaia Grandin Mendzylewski 6'00
‘We’ Are Not Different
A healing animation that explores the hidden feelings of people affected by self-harm, fostering compassion, understanding, and self-reconciliation while reminding us that pain and healing are universal human experiences.
China, UK 2025 Dir: Ruixue Peng 3'45
Dull spots of Greenish colour
The war for our attention has suddenly become an actual war. Information technologies appear not just as mere means for somebody’s ends – they are now a force unto themselves. We have no control over them and are doomed to scroll through the newsfeed.
Germany 2024 Dir: Sasha Svirsky 10'40
Floating
A daughter gradually realises that her father suffers from a mental illness. Isolated and rejected by society, he lives alone in a dark apartment, drifting like a balloon. She searches for a way to reconnect and bring him back down to earth.
Serbia 2025 Dir: Jelena Milunović 7'00
Still from ‘Floating’ Dir: Jelena Milunović 7'00
The London International Animation Festival (LIAF 2025) - the UK’s largest and longest-running animation festival is back with 10 days of amazing screenings, talks, discussions and events from November 28 to December 7. We are delighted that LIAF is once again returning to the Horse Hospital for 4 nights and 9 extra special screenings - with several visiting local and international animators attending to talk and introduce their films.
The full festival programme is available at https://liaf.org.uk/
