Film London Lodestars 2025: Animation
Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume
Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume is a freelance animator based in London, currently working as a producer at an independent animation studio. Her animation work is typically a blend of digitally drawn 2D animation, traditional paper animation and analogue techniques, and draws thematic and aesthetic influences principally from her West African (Ivorian) heritage. African wood carvings, bronze sculptures and ceremonial relics, the textures and colours of textiles and traditional dress are all foundational sources that have informed the evolving direction of her practice.
Gisela Mulindwa
Gisela Mulindwa is an experimental animator and visual artist based in London. A graduate in Animation from Edinburgh College of Art, her practice takes an experimental mixed media approach to animation, working between stop motion, collage, paint and analogue film to create dense and complex textures. She challenges social expectations around identity to unravel the relationship between self, other and the unconscious, revealing a world shaped by magical realism.
Mulindwa’s work has screened at festivals including the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Tricky Women Animation Festival, and she was commissioned to produce animations for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021 and 2022. Committed to challenging audience expectations of what animation can be, her work as an animator has led to moving image commissions for theatre projects at Theatre Peckham and Vault Festival.
Mary Martins
Mary Martins is a British-Nigerian animator from London, working across the genres of documentary and experimental film. She produces multi-layered and mixed media style animated documentaries that combine 16mm live action footage and archive material with more traditional forms of animation. Her ideas focus on socially engaged themes, working with communities, and representing the lived experiences and stories from marginalised groups. She uses animation in more experimental ways as a method of encouraging her audience to reflect on some of the most challenging situations that are impacting society today.