Red Rover (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2020, 13:22)
Written, directed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith, Red Rover is a stop-motion sci-fi adventure about colonialism on Mars.
When a robotic rover starts drilling for signs of life on Mars, the race is on for one tiny rock-beast to save her native community from the invader from Earth.
Funded by BFI Network, Red Rover was completed in July 2020 and is currently competing at international film festivals. It premiered at Sitges Film Festival in October 2020, where it won Best Animated Short Film, and was subsequently longlisted for the Academy Award. It then played at London International Animation Festival, New York International Children’s Film Festival, Guanajuato Film Festival and London Short Film Festival among others. In August 2021 it was selected to screen in Trafalgar Square before Star Wars: A New Hope, as part of the London Mayor’s Back to the Big Screen season.