The return of Puppet Masters, delivered by CIT and the Cosgrove Hall Films Archive.
Tickets £25 Full Price, £15 Concession, £5 Students/Pupils
Book online here or call 0161 912 5616.
Meet The Puppet Masters is a one-day event featuring a series of masterclass sessions and panel discussions featuring leading animators, creative artists and figures from the film and TV industry.
The event is ideal for animators, filmmakers, cinematographers, artists working with animation and fans of hand-drawn and stop-motion animation.
Hosted by Ric Michael, this year’s event features in-person talks and discussions with Grammy-winning animator Em Cooper, BAFTA-nominated animator Lizzy Hobbs, SXSW Special Jury award winner Sophie Koko Gate and award-wining animation cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett, along with a new video interview with Mexican animator and director Nayelli Ojeda, following up on her wonderful talk at Waterside back in March.
About Our Speakers
Em Cooper
Em Cooper is an Emmy nominated and Grammy winning British film director.
Her distinctive style of continuous motion in oil-paint combines psychological insight with an intuitive method of working the paint: each frame is painted by hand, and composed instinctively into sequences in a process she calls choreographing.
She is the 2024 winner of the Grammy for Best Music Video for The Beatles, I’m Only Sleeping. In 2018 she was nominated for an Emmy for her animation in the film Deej. In 2024 she created the two oil-painted sequences in Paddington in Peru, and recent commercial clients include Burberry, Prada and Stella Artois.
In 2023 she won the Jury Award for a Commissioned film at Annecy International Animation Festival; Gold at the UK Creative Circle Awards, and Best Animation at the Shark Music Video Awards. Her film 30% premiered at Sundance in 2013, and her experimental film works have been exhibited at Turner Contemporary and The Freud Museum.
Em is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and Sheffield Hallam University (Fine Art).
Em Cooper photo credit: Dasha Tenditn
Instagram @em.cooper.studio
Lizzy Hobbs
Elizabeth Hobbs is a traditional animator who has been making films under a rostrum camera since 1999. In the production of her animated films she has used relief print on 35mm film, butterfly prints, images created with a typewriter, paint on a bathroom tile, collage and paint and ink on paper.
The films are often based on historical figures or literary adaptations and they can be rude or funny. Elizabeth is senior tutor on the Directing Animation MFA at The National Film & Television School, and Associate Lecturer on the MA in Animation at London College of Communication.
Instagram @hobbslizzy
Sophie Koko Gate
Sophie is a South London based animation director. Her films burst with electric colors and squishy suggestive imagery. Usually following a cast of eccentric characters, Koko Gate weaves comical stories of interpersonal relationships set in her fantastic surreal worlds. Never shying away from themes of sexuality, Koko Gate’s work is interested in femininity, the body, pleasure, and love. Her style combines flat digital graphics with airbrush textures to arrive at a unique playful aesthetic that is instantly recognizable. Outside of her personal work, she is repped by Blink Ink in London and Roof Studio in NYC for freelance work. She was a 2018 ADC Young Gun, and her most recent film Slug Life won awards at Ottawa Animation Festival, Vienna Shorts, SXSW, GLAS, and will screen at Sundance 2020.
Instagram @sophiekoko
Nayelli Ojeda
Nayelli is a Mexican director and stop motion artist whose work explores the poetic relationship between humanity and nature. She blends animation, fine art and environmental sensitivity to craft visually immersive narratives.
She trained in animation and further developed her stop-motion practice through specialised programs across Mexico, the United States and Canada. Her work as an animation director has been selected and supported by international development platforms such as Talents Guadalajara (Berlinale), Bogotá International Film Festival (Colombia) and Animarkt (Poland).
Nayelli is the founder of Wisdom House Films, an independent creative studio dedicated to stop motion and experimental storytelling. With the support of Mexico’s national film fund IMCINE/FOCINE, the studio produced her stop motion short film Yugen, a piece crafted from Mexican ceramics and inspired by the natural world.
Instagram @wisdomhousefilms
Dave Alex Riddett
Award-winning cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett BSC has been involved with Aardman Animations since the mid 1980s.
He has worked as Director of Photography on all of Nick Parks' celebrated Films since the 'Wrong Trousers' as well as many 'Shaun the Sheep" projects, countless short films , commercials and the Netflix xmas special 'Robin Robin".
Instagram @davealexriddett
Note: Both Lizzy Hobbs and Em Cooper feature in Waterside’s new animation exhibition, Camera Obscura (24th Oct 26 - 11th Jan 27). Full details here.