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Glasgow Film Festival has revealed 50 next-generation filmmakers, including Oban-based producer Owen Thomas, who it will support in a star-studded talent lab.
Owen will take part in the talent lab, Animatic, as the lead applicant for the project, The Changeling.
Now in its third year, Animatic is an innovative talent development lab for Scottish-based creatives and studios, designed to help develop animated short films, feature films, or TV series ideas for an international audience.
Owen, co-founder of Ott & Thomas, alongside Switzerland-based animation director Lee Ott, champions bold, character-led LGBTQ+ stories through animation. The TV series they are developing for an international audience is The Changeling, which reclaims the deeply gendered archetypes of Celtic mythology—banshees, selkies, goddesses—and refracts them through a queer lens to explore identity, otherness, and what it means to exist in a world that refuses to see you.
Made possible with funding from the Scottish Government Festivals EXPO Fund through Creative Scotland, 15 projects have been selected for Animatic.
The chosen projects will take part in a six-month training programme that includes sessions, meetings and workshops delivered by executives from leading animation and screen organisations that include Netflix, BFI, Aardman Animations, Screen Scotland, and Mackinnon & Saunders. Brenda Chapman (Oscar-winning director of Brave, and Head of Story for The Lion King), Oscar-nominated director Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee), and Julie Lockhart (co-founder of Locksmith Animation) will also participate in the lab’s programme of events.
The lab will culminate in a Live Pitch, where participants will present their projects to an expert panel.
Following the Live Pitch, the panellists will choose their favourite pitches, with the following awards:
Best Short Pitch – £1,500
Best TV Series Pitch – £3,000 (Sponsorship from Astley Baker Davies)
Best Features Pitch – £6,000
