A special screening of films by animator and animation director Emma Calder who passed away in 2024.
Saturday 1st March 2025 from 5.30 pm at the Garden Cinema, 39-41 Parker Street London WC2B 5PQ.
A celebration of Emma’s work and her legacy as both an animator and a fierce advocate for independent animation.
Emma was born in London and studied Graphic Design at the Royal College of Art. Her RCA animated films, Ilkla Moor Baht Hat (1981) and Madame Potatoe (1983) went on to screen at ICA New Contemporaries, Tate Gallery and on Channel 4. In 1989 she set up Pearly Oyster Productions with long-term collaborator Ged Haney and went on to produce numerous commercial, commissioned and personal projects.
Her short The Queen’s Monastery (1998) was distributed in cinemas throughout the UK and North America and won numerous prizes, including a Silver Hugo at Chicago International Film Festival, second prize at Filmfest Dresden, Best Professional Film at Bradford International Film Festival and Special Jury Prize at Animafest Zagreb.
In 2022 Emma directed BFI-funded Beware of Trains, which has played at dozens of festivals and won prizes at the British Animation Awards, London International Film Festival, Brighton International Animation Festival and Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, where it won the Maria Lassnig Golden Film Reel prize.
Emma was a teacher, lecturer, campaigner and activist for animation and animation filmmakers and an early and active supporter of London Animation Club. Her lively, enthusiastic and positive contributions to club nights will be sorely missed. With the exception of Beware Of Trains, tonight’s programme is compilation of work which Emma screened there from 2012 onwards and certain films are introduced by videos of Emma herself.
The screening was followed by a Q&A with special guests Jez Stewart, Ged Haney, Coco Cripps and Fiona Woodcock. Photo by Maki Yoshikura.
Screening Programme:
Ilkla Moor Baht Hat (1981, 3 min 55 sec)*
Madam Potatoe (1983, 6 min 27 sec)
The Queen’s Monastery (1998, 6 min 5 sec)
Random Person: Quantum Cloud (2012, 1 min 20 sec)*
Boudica (2014, 5 min 33 sec)*
Random Person: Vasectomy (2014, 1 min 14 sec)
Everyone Is Waiting For Something To Happen (2014, 7 min 35 sec)*
Skateboard Heaven/Strung Out – Animation Tests (2017, 2 min 3 sec)
Random Person: Random Walk (2019, 1 min 18 sec)
Not Daft Intro Trailer (2023, 1 min 19 sec)*
Beware Of Trains (2022, 12 min 54 sec)
Total running time: 1 hour 5 minutes approximately.
The films marked with a * are preceded by a 2 to 3-minute video introduction by Emma herself filmed at London Animation Club between 2012 and 2023.
Special event curated and presented by Martin Pickles.
Technical support and DCP conversion by Tom Lowe.
With thanks to Julian Cripps and Luke Ramsay for all their help and input and to John Fryer and Phil Munich for filming Emma at London Animation Club in 2012 and 2014.
For further information: pearlyoyster.com and londonanimationclub.com