Three BA (Hons) Animation graduates from Manchester Met’s School of Digital Arts (SODA) have won a BAFTA as part of the team who worked on the powerful stop motion animated short Two Black Boys in Paradise.
Sanna Rassanen, Sam Carson and Karla Engstrom attended the award ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall where the award was presented by actors Milly Alcock and Miles Caton.
Two Black Boys in Paradise is a beautifully animated short film that was inspired from a poem by Dean Atta. It was produced by Manchester-based One6th Animation Studio, with support from the BFI Short Form Animation Fund and National Lottery funding. An animated interpretation of Atta’s poem about queer love and self-acceptance, it is set in a dreamscape where shame and judgement don’t exist.
The short film has already been featured at over 60 international festivals and has won prestigious awards from Manchester Animation Festival, Hollywood Queer Short Film Festival and the Portland Festival of Cinema.
One graduate, Sam Carson, previously expressed how he wanted people to feel when watching his animation during his exhibition for the Manchester Metropolitan Degree Show: “From a very young age I became obsessed with stop motion animation. I would watch all Aardman’s Morph shorts on repeat, as well as the obvious Wallace and Gromit and wanted nothing more than to meet the creators behind the clay.
“Their slapstick way of storytelling always inspired me and I believe that influence comes across in my work today. I try to generate a positively cheerful reaction from my films.”
This latest success for SODA follows similar stories, such as; BA (Hons) Photography graduates showcasing their work in the House of Commons and current student, Baka Bah’s powerful new documentary on Moss Side that premiered at Factory International.
