What a fun festival! Incredibly packed audiences for animation. All the animation screenings were in pretty large venues and they always sold out or came very close. I saw all the animation blocks and they were good. Always a couple of great films and a couple less to my taste, but interesting and varied in a nice way.
York is also an insanely beautiful city. It's a medieval city that is just so well preserved, with twisty little streets, overhanging buildings, city walls, lovely squares. The scale is small and so it feels cozy and intimate and is just a wonderful place to visit. Part of the fun of the festival was walking from venue to venue and exploring all these nooks and passageways. It was kind of insanely magical. Also delicious food.
The talks and things were great and there were a lot of networking events, which I sometimes went to, but I was so swept away by the city that I had a bit of trouble thinking it was super cool to shmooze in some dumb room. I still met a bunch of people that I liked and a couple that I really liked and hope to see more on the festival circuit and become real friends with, including the so-fun FX Goby from New Orleans FF (he had been traveling continuously since then!). The best people generally are animators! duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some good dancing too which is always so fun.
Not my picture but I need to upload still...