Astrid Goldsmith: Puppets, politics, and The Wind in the Willows with extra Wombles

Astrid Goldsmith is an award-winning stop-motion animator. After tuition from Great Uncle Bulgaria and 12 years of hand-making models for other people - including Garth Jennings (for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”), the boy band Blue and the unrelenting Duracell Bunny - she made her debut solo film, “Squirrel Island”. Astrid’s animations question the impact of human policy on the natural world, and her latest commissioned film, “Quarantine”, was nominated for the Debut Director Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival’s New Voice Awards. In this in-depth conversation, we talk grey squirrels vs. red squirrels, badgers as a focus for nationalism, how “good and bad” animals are an unfair human construct, and how anthropomorphic animation lends itself perfectly to deeper reflection about us and about our diverse ecosystem.

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