Galway Film Fleadh took place over the weekend and our Brown Baggers were out en force, popping from screening to screening, mingling with other animation and film folk and flitting between The Rowing Club and the Radisson until the very early hours!

We kicked off our Friday at the Fleadh with a Brown Bag drinks event at the Black Gate Cultural Centre! There was plenty of animation chatter and excitement for the upcoming IFB World Premieres and New Irish Animation Shorts programme. And a spot of impromptu piano playing at the end of the night courtesy of Creative Director Darragh O'Connell and Senior FX Artist Liam O'Brien ;)

The IFB World Premiere Shorts had an excellent selection of animations this year, starting off with the comical 3d short Macarooned, directed by Alan Short & Seamus Malone, and onto Rory Byrne's poignant and stylised An Island, Cartoon Saloon's moving Late Afternoon and Aoífe Doyle's charmingly cheeky Departure!

Late Afternoon picked up the award for Best Animated Sequence in a Short Film, and An Island received the James Horgan Award for Best Animation (qualifying it for Oscar consideration).

There was some well received news that the Irish Film Board are introducing new funding initiatives targeted at incentivising female writers, directors and producers, to assist in increasing female representation in the Irish film, television and animation industry at the Building Momentum: The Road to Gender Equality panel.

It's also worth noting that 70% of the IFB short films funded under the IFB Short Stories and Frameworks schemes which premiered at the Fleadh had female directors attached!

We had a great time at the AnimAl (Animation Alliance) party on Saturday, chatting with our tribe until the wee hours of the morning!

Thankfully, we didn't have to be up too early for the New Irish Animation Shorts programme which featured an array of diverse animation work from students and professional filmmakers alike!

Congratulations to Tom Collins' An Béal Bocht which received the Best First Short Animation Award AND the Don Quijote Award for Best Animated Short Film!

Check out the full list of Galway Film Festival award winners here.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Brown Bag party on Friday, we hope to see you all again at the Fleadh next year!