Staffordshire Film Festival returns for its second year in 2012 which can only mean one thing: it needs your short films and fast!

The film festival is an exciting opportunity for filmmakers locally, across the country and around the world to submit their films and compete for awards in a variety of categories including ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Animation’.

Shorts on Walls will be returning once more to this years Flatpack Festival with an exciting screening event on 16th March 2012.

Held in the Custard Factory’s former dance studio, this popular event gives Midlands’s animators the chance to screen their latest work and mingle with fellow animators over a drink of their choice.

Animation Forum WM have teamed up with Dice Productions and Flip Festival to bring you three consecutive nights of fantastic animated short films this February, for the British Animation Awards Public Choice Screenings.

Three seperate programmes of screenings the best UK animated films of 2010 and 2011 will be screened Thursday 9th, Friday 10th and Saturday 11th February, from 7pm each night at The Custard Factory Theatre.

Tickets can be bought in advance online for £5 per night using the Eventbrite form below and include a free drink courtesy of Flip Animation Festival. Attendees can also buy tickets for all three screenings if they prefer for a reduced rate of £12.

Shorts on Walls is back for another evening of fantastic animated shorts handcrafted in the Midlands on Thursday 13th October 2011, at Light House, Wolverhampton.

Shorts on Walls gives local animators the chance to screen their latest animated efforts to their peers and meet likeminded animators in a relaxed, bar atmosphere.

Animation Forum West Midlands members can get up to 70% off the cost of tickets to two back-to-back conferences for animation academics and professionals alike this September.

Birmingham City University's City North Campus is hosting both Animation Explosion 2011 and Online Mainline 2011 on the 14th and 15th September respectively.

Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning director and animator, Ian Emes will be answering a Q&A at a retrospective of his work on 11th September 2011 at the Electric Cinema, Birmingham, as part of Birmingham's massive annual free arts festival, ArtsFest.

The Birmingham-born animator famed for his influential films for Pink Floyd, won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar in 1984 for his short film, Goodie Two Shoes.

Warwickshire animation duo The Brothers McLeod are inviting AFWM members to an exclusive screening of their suitably bonkers TV pilot The Isle of Spagg.

The screening takes place on Thursday 18th August at The Electric Cinema, Birmingham (B5 4DY), with drinks starting at 6.30pm followed by the screening at 7.00pm.

Animators across the land are invited to attend our next event, a tantalising talk by award winning Animation Director Wonderland - The Trouble With Love And Sex, Jonathan Hodgson.

His most recent film Wonderland: The Trouble with Love and Sex is the first full-length animated documentary on British television and was broadcast on BBC2 and BBC HD on 11th May 2011. Here's a clip: