LAWYEREX promo film (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2022, 00:36)
Commissioned by the European Lawyers Foundation and co-funded by the European Union, the LAWYEREX promo film was directed, designed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith.
Blossoms music video/short film Christmas special for their single Christmas Eve (Soul Purpose), 2020. Directed by Edwin Burdis. Animation Director/Animator/Art Director – Astrid Goldsmith. Sets/Props/Armatures – Emma Niemis, Astrid Goldsmith, Tiff Monk. Dolls by Joliande Green.
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.
Quarantine (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2018, 12:56)
Quarantine is a stop-motion short film, written, directed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith. It was commissioned by the BFI and BBC4 as part of their prestigious Animation 2018 talent scheme, designed to find and support the UK’s most exciting emerging animators. UK viewers can watch it for free on BFI Player.
Quarantine is a post-Brexit pagan dance fantasy, about a troupe of Morris-dancing badgers on the south coast of England, who are trying to avoid the animal quarantine compound which has been built above their burrow. As they try to keep their old folk traditions alive, they ignore the plight of the caged quarantine inmates. But when tragedy strikes, a young badger goes rogue, risking exile from the troupe as he forges a new forbidden friendship on the other side of the bars.
Made in just 21 weeks, Quarantine is a 13-minute puppet stop-motion film, built and filmed at Mock Duck Studios in Folkestone. It premiered at BFI Southbank, and was broadcast on BBC4 on Sunday 2nd December. It is now available to watch free on BFI Player. In 2020 it was the third most watched film on the free BFI Player, and won Best Animated Film at London Short Film Festival.
Awards:
Best Animated Film – LSFF 2020
Audience Favourite – My Darling Quarantine SFF 2020
Official Selection:
Atlanta Film Festival, 2019
Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2019
Guanajuato International Film Festival, 2019
London Short Film Festival, 2020
New York International Children’s Film Festival, 2020
Stop-motion troll: character design, fabrication and animation by Astrid Goldsmith. For the June 2018 Nike ‘Never Ask’ campaign, social films directed by Riff Raff’s Finn Keenan.
Original clay sculpt of the troll, before clean-up and moulding
Original clay sculpt of the troll, before clean-up and moulding
Finished latex and foam puppet with plastazote keyboard
Squirrel Island (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2016, 21:11)
Squirrel Island is an award-winning stop-motion animated film, made by Astrid in her garage in Folkestone over the course of eight years.
A 20-minute sci fi action thriller about squirrel apartheid, Squirrel Island follows a lone renegade grey squirrel called Dot, who is trapped on a hostile and mysterious red squirrel island. Thrown together with an unlikely partner, Dot and her new friend Mr Acorn uncover a horrifying secret red squirrel plot…can Dot and Mr Acorn survive Squirrel Island?
A puppet stop-motion film that was eight years in the making, Squirrel Island was shot on 16mm in a garage in Folkestone, using a 1969 Bolex film camera. Inspired by the complex issues surrounding invasive species and the controversial policies implemented to protect native wildlife in Britain, Squirrel Island is a sideways look at the choices we make between good and bad animals.
After a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for post-production, the film was completed in 2016.
Awards
Best Film, Jury des enfants – Festival Cinema Jeune Public, Lausanne
Best Film, Children’s Jury – Soria International Film Festival
Achievement in Short Filmmaking – Portland Film Festival
In competition
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, 2017
London Short Film Festival, 2017
Tampere Film Festival, 2017
Warsaw Film Festival, 2016
Foyle Film Festival, 2016
Aesthetica Short Film Festival, 2017
Savannah Film Festival, 2016
Norwegian Short Film Festival, 2017
Portland Film Festival, 2016
Tacoma Film Festival, 2016
Newport Beach Film Festival, 2017
Sarasota Film Festival, 2017
Beijing International Short Film Festival, 2017
Vilnius International Film Festival, 2017
Vilnius International Short Film Festival, 2018
Underexposed Film Festival, 2017
Fest Anca, 2017
Athens Animfest, 2017
Lago Film Festival, 2017
Festival de Cine de Madrid, 2017
Special Selection Screenings
Brest Short Film Festival, Opening Screening, 2017
La Guarimba Film Festival, UNICEF touring programme, 2017
LCC special selection from BISFF, 2017
You can follow the film’s news and progress on Twitter @SquirrelFilm and on Facebook
A stop-motion sci-fi marine revenge fantasy, Polymer is a dystopian vision of what might happen if plastic sea pollution is not controlled. Drawing on the rich traditions of Atomic Age monster movies, Polymer shows a monstrous creature of our own making, stalking the seaside town of Folkestone and returning our plastics to us in the most devastating way.
Polymer was commissioned by SALT: The Festival of the Sea and the Environment.
Five articulated Duracell Bunny puppets, for use on the Duracell Professional website. These 2-foot posable Bunnies were sculpted, moulded and then fabricated by Astrid from start to finish, including each Bunny’s bespoke costume and props.
A Bunny head with flight helmet, before decals were applied
In addition to the 2-foot Bunnies, Astrid was commissioned to make 10 static model Bunnies, used by Duracell for promotional purposes. The hand-painted resin casts were around 30cm tall:
Construction Bunny under construction
Bunny with tools after painting
Four of the finished Bunnies hanging out in the kitchen
Print Advert for Ford Fiesta, designed by illustrator Al Murphy (Blink).
Astrid translated Al’s 2D drawing of the Alaphant (a pink cyclops elephant) into a 3-dimensional creature, fabricating the 60cm model out of pink felt:
Music video for PVT, directed by Alex Smith for Warp Records.
Astrid was the sole Model Maker/Puppet Maker for this video, a role which included designing and making four human puppets (bandage, fabric, vintage glass eyes and epoxy-coated polystyrene heads) and two giant shark puppets (aluminium wire, sellotape and broken glass). Astrid was also part of the puppeteering team for the pixilation process of the video, and got covered in a lot of fake blood.
