RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The Richmond Animation Festival is returning to the Byrd Theatre for its second year, showcasing animated films from all over the world. Ahead of the event, 8News got its organizers talking about their inspirations, their aspirations and the value of art in Richmond.
The 2nd annual Richmond Animation Festival will be held on Sunday, April 28, at the city’s historical Byrd Theatre, located at 2908 W Cary St. in Richmond. Tickets are $10 for entry into the two-part festival and can be purchased online.
8News sat down with the organizers of the Richmond Animation Festival: Dash Shaw, Jordan Bruner-Williams and Zack Williams. All three are local, independent animators who call Richmond home.
What inspired the creation of Richmond Animation Festival?
“I think our desire to start the festival was to kind of rekindle that involvement in the independent film world and to have a voice,” Williams said.
Husband and wife Zack Williams and Jordan Bruner-Williams moved to Richmond from New York before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“There’s so many great festivals already in Richmond — but as much as Richmond has a lot of great festivals, we don’t have one that’s dedicated to animation,” Bruner-Williams said.
The happy couple realized that meant they had an opportunity to bring something new and exciting to the city. After getting their mutual friend Shaw on board, they got started on preparations.
Shaw said he believed Richmond was in a unique position to foster a thriving art scene.
“[There’s] so many artists and animation artists here [in Richmond], because of VCU,” Shaw said. “It’s relatively inexpensive to live here, which means that it should be a great art scene.”
The missing piece was an excuse to get together, Shaw said.
“A scene requires meeting people in person,” Shaw said. “Someone can sit at home and watch YouTube animated clips all day, but it’s a very different thing to see it with other people who are psyched about it. And it’s at the Byrd, which is one of the most beautiful theaters in the world.”
Something all three of them agree on is how perfect of a home Richmond is for artists.
“There’s a big history of art and music from Richmond, and we kind of wanted to start this to inspire people to make some animation on their own … to look at art from a different perspective in the age of Netflix, TikTok and Instagram,” said Williams.
What should we expect from this year’s festival?
This year’s festival will bring short films from all over the world right here to Richmond and feature them on the Byrd Theatre’s big screen.
Bruner-Williams said the shorts program will begin at 5:30 p.m. and feature various independent short films, all with runtimes between 2 and 20 minutes, created in the past 4 to 5 years.
“The first part [of the festival] features animated shorts from around the world that Jordan [Bruner-Williams] stacked and curated,” Shaw said. “It will be a mixture of funny animations, experimental cartoons and films from France and all over. It’s a combination of older cartoons and newer cartoons — and it’s a chance to see them on this incredible screen with a bunch of other people.”
This will be the first year that The Richmond Animation Festival will feature a special guest: Robert Beatty, a popular artist best known for his album covers.
“He is one of the most well-known album cover artists of our generation,” Shaw said. “But at the same time, he has this animation practice that he’s done for music videos, and also cartoons.”
“He [Robert Beatty] is a prolific designer, animator, video artist and musician,” said Bruner-Williams. “So he’s going to be a really fun guest to have.”
Beatty will present an hour-long program, which will be followed by an interview with Shaw.
But that’s not where the fun ends — an event like this needs an after-party. It will be held at the NY Deli, located right next to the Byrd Theatre.
“That way, when people come and they are interested in animation, they can all talk to each other and hang out,” Bruner-Williams said.
What does the future hold for the Richmond Animation Festival?
“What sets this festival apart from other animation festivals is that it’s the only animation festival in Richmond so far,” Bruner-Williams said. “We were really inspired by Sundance and Pictoplasma — those festivals that occur in larger cities — and we want to try to create that kind of community around animation here in Richmond.”
The organizers of the Richmond Animation Festival would like to bring awareness to festivals like this in the region, as Williams said he’s not aware of any similar events in the Mid-Atlantic.
“This kind of work has a larger audience,” Williams said. “Hopefully this will bring people out — not just in Richmond, but maybe places like Charlottesville or North Carolina.”
Even so, Shaw said he appreciates any and all interest generated by the festival.
“I’m grateful for anyone who shows up — the audience is the most important thing,” Shaw said. “I used to think that the makers of the films were the most important, but from going to festivals, I’ve really learned that the audience is the most important. Having a cool and receptive audience.”
That’s why sharing this art form with others is so important to these three organizers.
“We want to bring these niche subjects to people who may not even know about this,” Shaw said. “There’s a very broad appeal, despite how niche some of the works are.”
Williams said he would love to bring more special guests in future years, whether they are independent creators or famous, well-known animators.
“We had about 300 people come to our first year — which was really, really great,” Shaw said. “So I’m hoping for more people [to come] this year and more people after that. The more people that come, it’ll [reach] more people. It’ll reach more people’s consciousness. Then we can do more and invite more guests and do different things.”
Bruner-Williams said she would also love to expand the festival’s programming.
“I would love to be able to continue to bring in guests to come and present their work in Richmond, whether they are local or from another country or state,” Bruner-Williams said. “I think having that connectivity in-person with artists is what makes me excited about hosting the festival. So hopefully we can keep expanding that for years to come.”
