Organisers of the Lagos International Festival of Animation (LIFANIMA) has announced that entries for this year’s festival increased remarkably compared to the previous years, but the festival has not been moved to October instead if this month, due to COVID-19.
The festival, which stopped taking submissions on May 15, said it received 905 entries from 100 countries compared to the 700 entries from 70 countries it received in 2019.
According to the festival founder and director, Muyiwa Kayode, the quality of the submissions in the different categories – 2D animation, 3D animation, Animation commercial and Visual Effects – also saw a remarkable improvement compared with entries received in previous years.
“We are extremely excited at the rapid growth of LIFANIMA into what is today one of the top animation film festivals in Africa. We are even more excited at what this means for the African film industry. LIFANIMA is bringing African animators together and we are poised to see greater collaboration that will culminate in the successful production of proudly African animation features that tell the African story,” Kayode said.
To move to the final selection for the festival, participating filmmakers have been encouraged to update their submissions on filmfreeway to allow the festival’s jury select the final works that will be screened in and out of competition at the event.
LIFANIMA was scheduled to hold from 4th to 6th of June in Lagos but was postponed to a later date in October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.