Cartoons Underground 2025 Brings Two Screenings Of Dynamic Animation Shorts at *SCAPE's The Ground Theatre on 1 November 2025

If you have not noticed, the Red Dot Diva blog was in hiatus for most of this year. Red Dot Diva had to deal with her mom's declining health and dementia. Due to this, her mom had to be placed in a nursing home for better long time care. With the loss of the matriarch in the home, other family and personal matters had to be managed as well. However, Red Dot Diva is now ready to revive the blog in some limited capacity, and she is delighted to bring this piece of announcement about an event that adds so much colour to the local arts scene.

Cartoons Underground, South-East Asia’s top indie animation festival, is back this year despite a major setback regarding the loss of the favourite and longtime venue, The Projector cinema. After the unexpected news of The Projector's closure, Cartoons Underground 2025 was almost cancelled. Fortunately, with the last minute help of new venue partner *SCAPE, the festival is raring to go with a bigger than ever programme on 1 November 2025. For the first time, there will be two screenings held for the afternoon and evening programme, consisting of 2 1/2 hours screening of a selection of bold and creative indie animated shorts. Included in the programme are also live Q&As, and the event's iconic Golden Durian Awards, presided by judges Huang Junxiang, Khoo Siew May and Ning Xuan Tan.

“We were very close to not being able to stage the festival this year,” says Festival Co-founder Vicky Chen. “Thanks to *SCAPE, we can bring our community together once again—and on a bigger scale than ever before.”

As in past years, the event's screening will feature an eclectic mix of local and international animation shorts, which include four films by homegrown student filmmakers and 16 global entries that include award-winning entries screened at international film festivals like Annecy, SXSW and Cannes. Festival attendees might want to look out for these film highlights - Mountain Mountain by Singaporean students Grace Cheu and Ben Tan, a story about two young adults searching for “mountains in Singapore” on a Mount Faber cable car ride; S The Wolf by Egyptian filmmaker Sameh Alaa, whose previous work won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; and Pear Garden by Iranian animator Shadab Shayegan, a BAFTA-longlisted film exploring the bond between a granddaughter and her grandmother after breast cancer surgery.

LASALLE College of the Arts is also continues to support young filmmakers as Education Partner for the festival. Chris Shaw, Head of LASALLE’s Puttnam School of Film & Animation, says: “We are excited to partner Cartoons Underground once again this year. Collaborations like these that bring education, industry and community together are absolutely vital to develop a thriving animation scene. Singapore and the region have an incredible wealth of creative talent that deserves to be showcased on significant platforms like this. Festivals like Cartoons Underground are essential for our students. Having their work seen by the wider community and industry, not only motivates them with a sense of accomplishment, but also builds confidence and creates pathways onto the international stage.”

On 25 October 2025 (Saturday), a week before the festival, Cartoons Underground will be presenting a masterclass and panel entitled Animating Tomorrow at LASALLE College of the Arts. This session will feature indie and industry professionals Paul Fu (Ubisoft Singapore), Ervin Han (Robot Playground Media), Vann Law (Rouge Collective), Race Krehel (Metamo Industries), and Exyl (Independent Filmmaker & Programmer), who will share about their individual journeys in the art of animation and help participants explore how they can keep their animation fresh and future-ready.


Check out the details of this industry event below. Do hurry, as there are only a few tickets left!

Animating Tomorrow – Industry Meet-Up
Date: 25th October 2025 (Saturday)
Venue: LASALLE College of the Arts, 1 McNally Street Blk F, Lvl 2, Room F208 Singapore, 187940
Time: 2PM – 530PM
Tickets: Free, but please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/AniTmr-panel

*SCAPE will be transformed into an animation playground for the upcoming festival. Expect to experience an interactive virtual street-art gallery inspired by Kampong Glam (created with Metamo Industries), enjoy scrumptious food from Kult Yard and Lavi Tacos, and check out creative booths that bring Southeast Asia’s animation community to life.

For a taste of what will be in store on 1 November, here's a trailer of the brilliant animation films that you would be able to catch at the screenings:

Having attended a few iterations of Cartoons Underground, Red Dot Diva recommends those who want to support local creative endeavour or wish to do something different to come for the screenings. You will be wowed by the amazing filmmakers that we have nurtured here. Who says Red Dot Island is boring???


Cartoons Underground 14th Edition
Date: 1st November 2025 (Saturday)
Venue: *SCAPE, The Ground Theatre, 2 Orchard Link #04-05 Singapore, 237978
Time: 4PM – 11PM
Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/cartoons2025
Festival Pass (Programme A + B):SGD 35
Programme A Only (4PM):SGD 15
Programme B Only Q&A + Awards Ceremony (7PM):SGD 25
Festival Pass (Programme A+B) (Student):SGD 25
10% Off Group Buy: SGD 157.50
Website: www.cartoonsunderground.com


------------------------------

If you enjoy Red Dot Diva's content, feel free to help her efforts going by showing your support through ko-fi. Thank you!

Cartoons Underground 2024: Interview With The Creators Of Animation Short Film "I Think I'm Going To Die"

Southeast Asia's largest independent animation festival Cartoons Underground 2024 will be having a one-night only animation short film screening on 19 October 2024 at The Projector @ Cineleisure. The screening will feature a total of 14 specially selected films.

One of these films in the Singapore Student Competition segment is a stop-motion animation and mixed media feature entitled “I Think I'm Going to Die” by Ning Xuan Tan, Audrey Yong and Meghan Poh. The trio are recent graduates from Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design, and Media, and “I Think I'm Going to Die” was their final year project. The film is about a young girl who discovered that she had a mysterious condition, and in a panicked state, scurried around looking for a diagnosis.

From left to right: Ning Xuan Tan, Audrey Yong and Meghan Poh

Director Ning Xuan Tan is a writer, editor and illustrator and loves telling stories that create compelling emotional connections. Her first film “Paper Offerings,” co-directed with Vanessa Ng and Winona Mazo, has been selected for a number of film festivals and was won first place at the 100-Second International Film Festival in Tehran.

The Art Director of the short film is Meghan Poh, a designer, illustrator, and animator, who enjoys experimenting in different ways of telling visual stories. Rounding up the core team is Head of fabrication, lights and rigging Audrey Yong, the stop-motion expert who also has a specialisation in 2D drawn animation and compositing.

Red Dot Diva had the pleasure of interviewing the team, and asked them about their process while creating “I Think I'm Going to Die”. They also shared with her what their aspirations are in the near future!

Red Dot Diva: Congrats for getting selected for Cartoons Underground! What made you decide on the theme of your short film?
Ning Xuan: Animation is a vehicle for spreading awareness and bringing experiences to others, so I really wanted to do a social issue which many could relate to. It was also exceedingly important to me that I was very familiar with the topic. So the theme of women’s health, followed by a bit of cyberchondria just seemed to be a good theme to talk about. I think in our world today, it’s just so easy for us to google search our illnesses. And then we’d have to try to figure out whether or not we’re actually dying, or is it just a part of being a woman.

Audrey: Animation is also the best medium for trying to visualise and communicate issues to a larger group of people who would never in their life experience the same problems. It’s very “If you know, you know” when it comes to women’s issues, so we wanted to make something that would instantly connect with other girls.

Red Dot Diva: Stop-motion animation is such a back breaking art, with so many bits and pieces involved in its process. How do you get things organised so that you can be creative and yet meet your deadlines?
Ning Xuan: We had clear roles, but we ended up being quite chaotic. What we wanted to do was to complete our film (from making a set, to animation to compositing it into a video) in sections, based on the mediums. And each person would have a job in that medium, like rigging the puppet, building the set, animating, post-production etc. So we’d set deadlines for ourselves, creating a pipeline and hoping to be done with a medium and then moving on to the next medium.

But we were slow because we had to keep experimenting and working things out. Our pipeline of work would fail because of this, and we’d jump over to help each other which slowed us down more. We’d end up juggling multiple jobs. I think there were times when I didn’t have a rest day at all for weeks because we couldn’t meet our deadlines.

Still it really helped that our film had so many things to do, I’d find myself editing, making paper flowers, colouring with crayons, felting, and then sculpting a plunger. So creatively, I was never completely burnt out since there was always something new and exciting to do. In that aspect, it meant that I was always quite productive. And once things were going, it was easier to be inspired and motivated to finish the scene. I would always feel incredibly happy after we complete a shot, because just seeing all our hard work put together, even if it’s just a few seconds, makes it all worth it.

Audrey: It’s organised chaos for a film at this scale – we always plan things to go one way but end up realising that it’s not realistic while we’re in the midst of it. Our flexibility with our planning both helped and hindered us, but I think it was the reason we got it all done in the end. The key was to make sure we were all doing something at any given point in time – if I’m still fixing Lily’s puppet for one scene, I’d ask Ning Xuan to help me get the set for the next scene ready in the meantime, while Meghan animates the shots in a different scene that doesn’t require the puppet I’m currently fixing. As long as we were optimising for simultaneous work, we were somewhat on the right track.

Red Dot Diva: It's interesting to note that the film involves different animation mediums and styles. What is it about the story that fits this choice of direction?
Ning Xuan: I wrote this story knowing that I wanted a stop motion animation film that could let me experiment as much as possible. With this in mind. I thought of creating a story of a girl that could travel through different worlds searching for a diagnosis. So this gives us an opportunity to reasonably use different mediums and styles throughout the film. Our professor, Bernhard, would also always tell us, “why use stop motion? Why not 2d or 3d animation?” He would try to get us to think about why we are using a certain medium for each part of the story. So the entire story was really carefully considered with each medium.

Meghan: The core of the story is really about transformation, Lily (the main character) is changing physically and psychologically, and the way the world sees her is changing as well... it’s fitting that the film’s art direction is all about shifting from medium to medium!

The medium changes are also done very deliberately—there’s one transition from sand to paper that blends the two materials together and even uses a special puppet only present in that transition—and this all underscores the journey that she is on. I really enjoy when films use visual techniques usually reserved for epic drama to illustrate the emotional impact of seemingly mundane experiences. Lily is facing something completely unfamiliar to her, her world is turning on its head, and animation is such an imaginative medium to pull the audience along for the ride.

Red Dot Diva: What were the best and worst parts of making this film?
Ning Xuan: I think the best part is being surprised by how good a medium looks as a final product. There were a lot of times we were just going in blind not knowing what we’re doing half the time, just trying our best. My team would always say we just have “5 bucks and a dream.” And then we’d be in complete shock when we light it all up, set up our camera and things actually look amazing.

The worst part for me was the uncertainty of the whole film. Sometimes, it just felt as if our hard work amounted to nothing. Because we were working so hard, experimenting and yet we wouldn’t have a lot shot on camera. The thing about stop motion is that more time can be spent making and preparing things, and if we don’t do this well it’s super hard for the animator to animate. So we were always slow in our cohort because we didn’t have just as much filmed and shot as they did. But I’ve come to accept that stop motion is all about problem solving disasters. And while we were slow we completed things at a good pace and even managed to finish the film early.

Meghan: The best part is that I came out the other end still loving the process of animation, thanks to a wonderful team. I don’t think most people get to see how tedious, lonely, and borderline painful animation can be—spend hours and hours in a dark little room pushing grains of sand around in very specific ways and you start to lose your mind a bit. The worst part is that I’m not sure when I will have the time and resources to make something at this scale again...

Audrey: The worst parts for me were all the unprecedented problems we encountered. There’s a lot of unknown when it comes to stop motion because it’s a lot harder to execute than any other kind of animation - our built assets need to last, our rigs need to function the way our animators need it to, etc. At some point I was literally fighting science because the type of silicone rubber I had just happened to be the kind that didn’t cure when in contact with resin. Things like these are impossible to account for without experience, so it really felt like we were wandering around a dark room with no flashlight in those moments. The best part was probably the entire process of making something in stop motion. I’m now more convinced than ever that this is something I wholeheartedly love and enjoy.

Red Dot Diva: What is your favourite stop-motion animation movie?
Ning Xuan: A classic for me would be Coraline, I watched this so many times when I was a kid I could recite the script. I just love how uncanny it looks. But currently? I have to say Pui Pui Molcar. There’s just something about both films that really shows that every scene was handmade with love.

Meghan: It was an experimental stop-motion short that made me decide to major in animation: Furniture Poetry by Paul Bush. I didn’t know that animation didn’t always have to be representational or narrative-driven.

Audrey: The one that stuck with me the most from my childhood was The Boxtrolls. But I’ve also been really loving Pokemon Concierge.

Red Dot Diva: After the premiere at Cartoons Underground, what are your key aspirations regarding the art of animation film-making?
Ning Xuan: We’ve been trying to work out something as a team again to make another stop motion film for fun. I just love stop motion so much it would be a shame if I can’t do this again, I will just be open to opportunities in the future.

Meghan: I want to make a film again, whether it’s with this team or on my own or in some other way. It’s a really rare, precious opportunity to make a movie that isn’t business and doesn’t have to bend to the world, one that I’m not sure will come by again.

Audrey: Future stop motion projects aside, I’m interested to see how far we can carry the stop motion medium with us. I feel like it's so rare to see stop motion outside of a film format. It would be really cool if we had the opportunity to work on a stop motion game or visual novel.

Red Dot Diva finds it super exciting to see how energetic and imaginative our local animation and film students can be, and you will be even more impressed by their work when you watch their short films at Cartoons Underground 2024 next weekend. Go grab those festival tickets now!


CARTOONS UNDERGROUND FILM SHOWCASE
Date: 19 October 2024 (Saturday)
Times: 7 PM
Duration: 1 hr 36 min
Venue: The Projector @ Cineleisure - https://theprojector.sg/films-and-events/cartoons-underground-2024
Admission: Standard tickets at $20 each. VIP Ticket at $40, includes exclusive Cartoons Underground 2024 Merchandise

----------------------------


If you enjoy my content, feel free to help keep the blog and other Red Dot Diva efforts going via ko-fi. Thank you for your support!

Cartoons Underground 2024 - Watch 14 Stunning Animation Short Film Showcase at The Projector @ Cineleisure (19 Oct 2024)

Craving to feast on animation films other than those blockbuster aesthetics produced by Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and the like? Then, it's time for you to head to Cartoons Underground 2024, Southeast Asia's largest independent animation festival.

The 13th iteration of the animation event will showcase a lineup of 14 specially curated shorts from Italy, the US, China and of course, Singapore, on 19 Oct 2024, 7 PM at The Projector @ Cineleisure. These films - which feature different styles of animation like 2D, 3D and stop-motion animation - were selected from 1,500 submissions from over 90 countries. Expect to watch stunning animation films with topics that range from sex positivity, mental health, friendship, horror and the classic good versus evil.

Premiering at the festival is “She and Her Good Vibrations” by Olivia Griselda and Sarah Cheok, a bold story a woman's sexual discovery. This film was developed in Cartoon Underground's Story Development Lab back in 2021. Other notable films include Dahee Jeong’s “Society of Clothes,” where everyone exists only as clothes; Greg McLeod’s comical, philosophical take about filmmaking entitled “Mee and Burd,” and Animation Youtube titan, Patrick Smith’s “Broken,” which tells the tale in his signature style about the eternal battle between good and evil.

Since the roots of Cartoons Underground originate locally, the event also highlights the wonderful work of Singaporean student filmmakers and artists of Asian heritage with 2 International Programmes and 1 Singapore Student Programme. In the Singapore Student category, NTU Art, Design and Media (ADM) makes a strong showing this year. Four out of the five films presented are from the school, and include “Neh Neh Pok” which tackles body positivity, and the dialogue-less and emotional drama “The Seamstress' Secret,” as well as Ning Xuan Tan's “I Think I'm Going to Die,” a striking film about a girl's odd affliction that uses diverse animation techniques.

For the full list of the 14 animation films featured, check out the programme list at www.cartoonsunderground.com. Here's the trailer so you can take a peek of the selected films:

For those who want deeper insights to the art of animation, Cartoons Underground will be hosting a special event called Behind the Screams: Masterclass on Singapore Horror Adult Animation, which will take place on 17 October 2024 from 6PM to 9 PM. The horror-themed masterclass (perfect for the Halloween season!) will feature two upcoming horror-themed animated TV Shows: “Zombie Safari” by Finding Pictures Studios, and “A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts” by Robot Media Playground! You will get to learn about TV animation production, and engage with the speakers Ervin Han (Robot Media Playground), Mark Wee (Finding Pictures Studios) and Jerrold Cheah (Finding Pictures Studios) at the Q&A.

Cartoons Underground is a fantastic way to appreciate the vast range of animation talent out there, especially those based here locally. Red Dot Diva attended the film showing for the first time last year, and it was an eye-opener. It is amazing that amidst layoffs and closures of large animation studios like Lucasfilm, there is still a strong presence and animation talent burgeoning on our island and in the region. So, if you want to try something different, go get a ticket at this very unique one-night-only premiere.


CARTOONS UNDERGROUND FILM SHOWCASE
Date: 19 October 2024 (Saturday)
Times: 7 PM
Duration: 1 hr 36 min
Venue: The Projector @ Cineleisure - https://theprojector.sg/films-and-events/cartoons-underground-2024
Admission: Standard tickets at $20 each. VIP Ticket at $40, includes exclusive Cartoons Underground 2024 Merchandise

----------------------------


If you enjoy my content, feel free to help keep the blog and other Red Dot Diva efforts going via ko-fi. Thank you for your support!

Cartoons Underground 2023 - Watch 15 Brilliant And Hopeful Animation Film Shorts At The Projector (25 November 2023)

Humanity is currently facing tough challenges of a global and personal scale - a devastating pandemic that brought life around the world to a grinding halt, ongoing political conflicts and wars, the effects of climate change, growing mental health issues all around the world as well as the encroachment of artificial intelligence. The annual Cartoons Underground event, SE Asia’s top Indie Animation Festival held in Singapore, aims to offer fun and hope to its audience as they navigate these growing concerns.

“There isn’t an elephant in any room anywhere that can’t be improved by being coloured pink and given a speech bubble,” says festival co-founder Vicky Chen. Chen began the community-driven Cartoons Underground in 2012 together with Patrick Smith, Director of MTV Daria.

“We are living through turbulent, challenging times as individuals and as a society. It’s a time of change and while change is inevitable it’s ultimately how we respond and adapt to it that defines us. And I hope that watching these films will help our audience to make sense of these challenges,” adds Festival Director, Jerrold Chong.

Cartoons Underground 2022 (22 Oct) Heads To Projector x Picturehouse - Get Your Tickets Now!

After two years of producing a virtual format during the Covid-19 pandemic, Cartoons Underground is back with a one-day in-person event for its 11th edition! The festival will be held on 22 October 2022 at at Projector X: Picturehouse cinema.

Cartoons Underground is Southeast Asia's largest animation festival. This year, it attracted 1,681 entries submitted from 96 different countries, which is the highest number of submissions received during the festival's 11-year run. 16 animation works have been specially selected to be screened during the event, followed by a Director Q&A, and a celebratory music-pumpin' afterparty.

Did you notice the many cats in the Cartoons Underground is banner? The drawing is by this year's festival artist Sarah Lim, a Yale-NUS graduate with a degree in Life Sciences and a minor in Arts and Humanities. Sarah scored an internship with Finding Pictures after attending animation courses for 2 years. She was then involved with prop and character design for their latest TV series, Puberteens, and is now eager to tell more stories through animation and art.

Cartoons Underground 2021 Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary from 20 to 27 November 2021

It is Cartoons Underground's 10th Birthday this year! To celebrate this joyous occasion, South-East Asia's biggest independent animation festival has expanded to a 7-day event from 20 to 27 November 2021. It will run as a hybrid event, with both in-person and virtual segments.

Cartoons Underground, the brainchild of Singaporean festival director Vicky Chen and celebrated American animator Patrick Smith, launched a decade ago with just a 2-hour animated movie screening session. Through the years, as interest for animation grew, the event included workshops and panels, as well as the annual Golden Durian Awards for excellence in animation. It was boosted to a 5-day virtual event last year, despite of restrictions due to the pandemic.

This year's National Day has shown the kind of magic our homegrown indie animation studios can do, so the festival provides a great opportunity to give them more exposure. Not only that, Cartoons Underground offers opportunities to connect animation art students - most who come from NTU and LASALLE - to the industry's professionals.

“We always believed Singapore had this huge potential to be a hub for independent animation for the entire region,” she says. “When we launched Singapore was trying to tempt the big international studios. But it’s the independent studios that have stayed and ten years on we’re seeing more and more people buying into our vision,” says Vicky Chen.



Cartoons Underground 2021 will still centre on the screening of new animated short films. The screening helps to showcase and introduce an eclectic range of animation films to local and global audiences. These films are in contrast to the easily marketable styles by Disney or Dreamworks, or even some anime, that many are already familiar with.

Included in the festival programme are two international competitions. One of the notable entries for the international competition is The Visit by Morrie Tan (LASALLE College of the Arts BA(Hons) Animation Art), an intimate stop-motion story about a girl and her thoughts whenever she visits her father in prison. Red Dot Diva first watched The Visit as part of the seven animated short film anthology Spectrum, which was co-produced by Singapore-based Robot Playground Media and Malaysia’s The R&D Studio. The Visit draws you in with quiet emotion, and the film has already received awards and is currently in the film festival circuit.

Tan Wei Keong, Programme Director of Cartoons Underground, also recommends checking out other entries, like Canada-based director Liza Desyatkova's Don't Think About Her. “It magnifies the agony of having a crush on someone and I love it that the director pushed the film over the edge to a laugh-out-loud effect,” Tan says.

There will also be a screening of films from students at Singapore’s NTU and LASALLE. In addition, the anniversary celebration will provide a nostalgic throwback of some of the very best films shown at Cartoons Underground over the last decade, including those by Singapore creators Sarah Cheok's The Growth and Davier Yoon and Joshua Tan's witty A Brief History Of Time. Incidentally, the latter is one of Tan Wei Keong's favourites.

“It's a joy to rewatch it a million times,” he says. “I always discover something new in the process. It's a gem in the local animation scene, so it's the perfect short to open the retrospective program.”

The expanded programme also includes three online panels about careers in animation. They are:

Developing the animation industry: The role of education (23 Nov, 8pm) looks at how Singapore’s animation industry can bring on the next generation of talent.

Beyond Animation: What’s next for creative graduates? (21 Nov, 2pm) brings together animation graduates who’ve built successful careers.

Future of monetizing in animation (25 Nov, 8pm) looks at the ways the new digital economy lets animator make money from connecting directly or indirectly with audiences.

On this weekend and next weekend, Cartoons Underground 2021's partner *SCAPE is hosting a four-day development lab on-site and providing Zoom webinars on topics including Non Fungible Tokens on Animation. On the last day of the festival (27 November, 1 PM SGT), *SCAPE Gallery will be hosting a limited in-person screening of animated movie TATSUMI. The film about Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi, was directed by local auteur Eric Khoo.

“Ten years really flies by when you’re having fun,” says Festival Director Vicky Chen. “Cartoons Underground really has been a labour of love. But seeing the reaction of audiences, following young animators as they embark on their careers, and watching indie animation really take root in Singapore is awesome payback for everything the CU team puts in.”

Tickets for Cartoons Underground 2021 is already on sale! To view the animation films and panels online, buy your ticket from this link - https://cartoonsunderground.com/ticketing-2021


More details about the festival are at Cartoons Underground's website at https://cartoonsunderground.com!

Cartoons Underground Returns With An Online Edition from 9 to 13 December 2020

So what if COVID-19 a.k.a. the Big Bad of 2020 is still lurking in the corners of Red Dot Island, and has prevented festivals and events from taking place? Cartoons Underground 2020, the island's very own animation festival, has in fact expanded from a 1-day evening festival to an exciting 5-day online event from 9 to 13 December 2020.

Of course, the festival, which is also South-East Asia's largest, will not be happening in their usual physical venue. Instead, attendees will step into an interactive and vibrant 360° virtual world created by CG lead Enrique Caballero.

Love is in the air

Within this immersive neon-lit cyberpunk 'hood, festival goers will be able to hunt for easter eggs, view films and behind the scene footages, and attend Q&A sessions with directors. Red Dot Diva had a sneak peek of the 360° world, which had tributes to Lady & The Tramp as well as the chef couple from the movie, Ratatouille. According to Enrique Caballero, he felt that during this difficult year, we all needed more love. Since the locals love shopping online, there will also be an art market where you can buy unique items for your own collection or as presents.

While the pandemic continues to rage on in several parts of the world, live action TV and movie productions have either halted or have been delayed. But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Seemingly pandemic-proof, the animation industry is set to boom in the next 5 years due to market demand, and for the practical reason that most of the work can be performed remotely.

Red Dot Diva welcomes the rise of animation movies. They are not just for kids and children. There are the cookie-cutter Disneys, Pixars, Dreamworks and well-loved Studio Ghibli films, and then there are so many others that fall in between or out of those familiar lines that are as beautiful and moving.

Cartoons Underground 2019 (9 November 2019) Shines Spotlight on Women Animators

Animation movies are more than just Disney princesses and a bunch of talking toys. To get familiar with the sheer variety of topics and directorial styles, head down to Cartoons Underground 2019, Asia's leading indie animation festival, at Kult Yard, 195 Pearl’s Hill Terrace next Saturday, 9 November, 6PM to 11PM.

The Cartoons Underground festival began in 2012, by founders Patrick Smith, Director of MTV Daria, and Vicky Chen. This will be the event's 8th year celebrating the visual wonders of animation films.

There was a record-breaking 1,416 entries from all around the world, as film makers vie for a spot in the festival's screening schedule, as well as to compete at the coveted Golden Durian Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Student Film and Audience Choice Award. After much deliberation, 19 short films were selected for screening by Cartoons Underground's Programming Director and recent Singapore Young Artist Recipient Tan Wei Keong.

Some of these entries have won awards at Ottawa Animation Festival, Zagreb Animation Festival and Edinburgh international film festivals. 13 of these films showcased during the event are by women directors.

Illustration Arts Fest is BACK on 22 & 23 September, LASALLE McNally Campus

Colourful, quirky and unabashedly indie, the Illustration Arts Fest (IAF) returns to LASALLE McNally Campus this coming weekend on 22 and 23 September.

The Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC) put the show together for the first time in 2016. This will be the 3rd anniversary of the show, and it is already one of Red Dot Diva's favourite annual art event.


Here are 5 Reasons Why You Should Come To This Year's IAF too!

1. Vibrant Artists Market
The Artists Market at Illustration Arts Fest is the best thing ever. It is busy, inventive and vibrant. With over 100 indie artists and illustrators from Red Dot Island and nearby countries taking part, no wonder it's a crowd puller.

Red Dot Diva recommends those who visit IAF to check out the booths by her friends and acquaintances, like Jessica Emmett, Inky Cat Studio, The Rolling Ronins (with Wayne Rée & Rex Regrets), Danger Gene, toy designers Daniel Yu and Ziqi Wu, and not forgetting, the comic creators from COSHStudios.

The art style is wide ranging and eclectic, as the list of artists include the popular Muffinsaurus, artists Billy Yong and Zu Orzu, Fingersmith Letter Press who specializes in illustration and hand lettering, Inez Design with embroidery art and Rakasa Print Studio from Malaysia who does silkscreen art.