Works by South West  animators selected in Animated Encounters for animation and Mixed Competitions for strands featuring all formats - will be up for prestigious awards and cash prizes totalling £12,000 alongside productions from 32 different countries.

Two dedicated Best of South West Awards (Brief and Animated) will also be carefully discerned by the jury, with £500 going to the winner.

Flytopia by Bristol-based creative team Karni and Saul will have its UK premiere at Encounters. Adapted from a short story by Will Self and brought to the screen in a mix of live action and animation, Flytopia is a fantastical tale in which a man enters into a pact with all the insects that live in his house. The directors already featured at Encounters in 2010 with the BAFTA-nominated Turning.

The Best of South West showcase returns to Encounters Festival, and includes an animated road movie by BAFTA-winning director Emma Lazenby:The History of the Orange.

The Academy Award winner Nick Park (Aardman Animations) also directs a hybrid, live-action and  stop-motion music video for Plain Song by Sheffield band Native and The Name, his first after working on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer in 1986.

Meanwhile, in a special gala event, Aardman Animation's key figures Nick Park, Peter Lord and David Sproxton will be brought together in conversation for a rare joint appearance at Arnolfini. Alongside this, a Retrospective includes two programmes of short format work - "Early Years Claymation" and "From Pigs to Pirates!", bringing Aardman treasures to the big screen in all their animated glory.

The Best of South West will welcome a number of works from promising students and new graduates of the region's universities, including the premiere of a fantastical short animation from local Bristol School of Animation graduate David Dymond, Fell. Several directors bring an international flavor to the selection: Shell and Paddy co-directed by Swiss animator Thomas Spettel with Joseph Hill (University of Falmouth); Klovesteinen, a Norwegian folk tale animation graduate Anders Furevik (University Arts College Bournemouth).

There are also international co-productions: Webbed by Maria Morancho (UK / Spain), and video art piece La Quantité de Vie by Phoebe Fleming (UK / United Arab Emirates).

The festival will notably be making use of the Arnolfini's ground floor gallery space for the first time, to present a free-entry exhibition of Aardman Models, sets and props from heart-warming creations such as Morph and Wallace and Gromit. Not forgetting the welcome return of model-making fun for all ages, with animation workshops for both kids and grown-ups led by Aardman's Jim Parkyn.

In line with its role as a champion of emerging talent from Bristol and the surrounding area, the festival will host the launch of the FilmWorks networked professional development scheme, designed to fast-track the short and feature film projects of selected producers and directors. The initiative is organised by Watershed alongside Showroom Workstation in Sheffield and Broadway in Nottingham.

Bristol-based participants will be mentored by world-class local producer Julie Lockhart (The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!). For more information on FilmWorks visit www.filmworks.org.uk.

To see more of the Encounters festival programme, visit www.encounters-festival.org.uk