The Animation Atlas

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"Indispensable"
- EMPIRE Magazine

Animation is a global artform, and The Animation Atlas is your essential guide to this exciting, expansive world.

From Michael Leader and Jake Cunningham, authors and hosts of the Ghibliotheque podcast, comes this whistle-stop tour through animated film history. A cartography of cartoons, The Animation Atlas takes in everything from titans of animation such as Disney, Pixar, Aardman and Studio Ghibli to pioneers, innovators and rising stars from the wider world of cinema.

A truly global history of animation - Each of the 30 chapters sets down in a different country to focus on local talent that has made a global impact on the form, from Spain to South Africa and China to Chile.

Box office hits and hidden gems - Features a dazzling selection of films, from hand-drawn Hollywood classics (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and award-winning CG masterpieces (Flow), to the works of revered artists such as Lotte Reiniger (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), Jan Švankmajer (Alice) and Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbour Totoro).

Dozens of gorgeous illustrations - Includes more than 150 photographs, artworks and stills from some of the most beautiful animated films ever made. A perfect gift for film lovers.

Jake Cunningham is a multimedia writer and producer. As well as Ghibliotheque, he has produced podcasts with NBC Universal, Sky, Channel 4 and Prime Video. He discusses film on the BBC World Service, and has written and voiced video essays for the BBC and Little White Lies. He has written for Empire, The I and NME among others. His first animated short film as writer and producer, made with the BFI, was released in 2021. He recently developed and wrote on a Sky Atlantic documentary and is currently producing his next film. He lives in London with his wife, small dog and baby.

Michael Leader is a writer and broadcaster whose writing has appeared in Sight & Sound and Little White Lies, and whose voice has appeared on podcasts and radio ranging from Ghibliotheque and Truth & Movies to BBC Front Row and BBC Radio 5. For several years he was Editorial Director for Film4 Online, and Commissioning Editor of the BBC Arts/iPlayer series Inside Cinema and Inside Games, for which he wrote and produced short-form documentaries about, among other things, Studio Ghibli. He lives in Sussex with his partner and a small child.