Tidy Toys Pictures presents

Violet

An animated tale narrated by Aidan Gillen

SYNOPSIS

SHORT: ’Violet’ is the dark, cautionary tale of a young girl who despises her reflection.

LONG: ’Violet’ is the dark, cautionary tale of a young girl who despises her reflection. On the night of the school ball, tired of the abuse, Violet’s reflection decides she’s not going to take it anymore...

CREW

MAURICE JOYCE - DIRECTOR // ANIMATOR

Maurice Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1969. He began his career in animation in 1989 as a layout artist at Murakami Wolf Studios in Dublin where he worked on projects such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, James Bond Jr., and Speed Racer. During his four years at Murakami Wolf, he trained as an animator, storyboard artist, sheet director and designer.

He moved to Hamburg, Germany in 1993 where he worked as a sheet director and layout artist on the T.V. series Ottifants and the theatrical feature Felidae. He then went to Seoul, Korea to supervise the overseas production of the feature Felidae. He also worked in Koln, Germany as co-director on the T.V. series Urmel and layout supervisor on two T.V. specials Bibi Blocksberg and Benjamin Blumchen. In 1996, Joyce moved to New York to work at MTV Animation on the theatrical feature Beavis and Butthead Do America as the layout supervisor.

After that he went to L.A. to work on the T.V. series King of the Hill. In 1997, Joyce went back to New York to Jumbo Pictures, Inc. to direct eight episodes of Disney's Doug and the animation for the Doug musical, which opened at Disney's MGM theme park in Florida. In 1998 he directed ‘Doug’s 1st Movie’ for Disney, which was released in cinemas in March 1999.

In 2000 Joyce came home to Ireland to work with TerraGlyph Productions on Wilde Stories, a trilogy of Oscar Wilde’s children’s stories for Channel 4, The Nightingale and the Rose ,”The Devoted Friend’ and The Selfish Giant.

Since then he has been working in Ireland as a Director and Storyboard Artist on high profile international television series for studios such as Cartoon Saloon and Brown Bag Films, including The Octonauts, Olivia, Fleabag Monkey Face and Peter Rabbit. He directed the pilot for the animated comedy series Man Nurse (History Channel) for Brown Bag Films and the T.V. series Newsbag for Icehouse Studios/TV3. Joyce is currently working on the pre school show Puffin Rock for Cartoon Saloon.

NURIA GONZÁLEZ BLANCO - PRODUCER

Nuria González Blanco was born in Granada, Spain. She studied animation at Edinburgh College of Art. Her graduation film—Domingueros—won the Online Audience Award at Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival and was nominated for a Scottish New Talent BAFTA. She began her career in animation production on a pilot for Disney. Since then, she has worked across the full spectrum of animation production roles in children’s television, advertising and film. Past projects include the preschool TV show Pocoyo (Zinkia Entertainment, Madrid) and the Dove Men+Care global advertising campaign (Passion Pictures, London). She is currently line producing the preschool TV series Puffin Rock for Cartoon Saloon in Ireland.

MARK HODKINSON - WRITER // PRODUCER

Born in Dublin, Mark Hodkinson has been writing professionally for film and television for over fifteen years. In that time he has worked on both animated features and animated and live action television shows which include: ‘Canimals’ (Aardman Animations), ‘All At Sea’ (CBBC), ‘Roy’ (CBBC, JAM Media), ‘Bottersnikes and Gumbles’ (Netflix, CBBC) and ‘Peckles’ (Nick Jr.).

With his own production company, Snowluke Pictures, Mark has co-written and co-directed two series of the live action comedy ‘Fran’ (Setanta Sports and TV3) and an award winning live action short, ‘Up For Air’.

Mark is currently living in Dublin and was recently nominated for ‘Best Writer On An Animated Series’ at the 2015 Irish Animation Awards.

AIDAN GILLEN - NARRATOR

Aidan began his extensive acting career spanning film, theatre and television in Dublin in the late '80s before moving to London. He went on to star in Queer as Folk, a role for which he was nominated for Best Actor at the British Academy Television Awards. For his role on Broadway in Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker, he was also nominated for a Tony Award. Having been spotted by producers in The Caretaker, he was then cast as Tommy Carcetti in HBO’s The Wire, for which he won an Irish Film & Television Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role in Television. One of his most notable roles to date must be that of Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish in the acclaimed Game of Thrones, for which he shared a SAG Award nomination with the cast for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Earlier this year he won his third IFTA best actor award for an acclaimed turn as former Irish political leader Charles Haughey and has just finished filming his roles as Janson in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and as Goosefat Bill in Guy Ritchies Knights of the Round Table: King Arthur.

TECHNICAL SPECS

Length: 7min 58secs Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Sound Mix: Stereo Animation: 2D Computer Animation Available formats: DCP // Blu-Ray // DVD // ProRes Subtitled Versions: English

Festival Contact: Katie McCullough Festival Formula submissions@festivalformula.com // +44 (0)20 3286 9840