Five Decades Of Frame By Frame
The festival has spent fifty years turning Ottawa into a gathering place for animators, students and industry veterans from across the globe. This year’s lineup includes the Platform Animation Competition, which showcased films and episodes made for streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video during a recent screening at the Ottawa Art Gallery’s Alma Duncan Salon.
That kind of programming is part of what has made the festival a fixture on the international animation calendar, drawing attention not just to finished films but to the people and studios behind them.
A Hometown Hub For The Craft
Part of what makes Ottawa’s animation scene so distinct is the way its pieces fit together. Algonquin College’s animation program, the city’s local studios and the festival itself all feed into one another, something instructor and program coordinator Joel Shemrock says sets Ottawa apart.
“All three can sort of work together, it makes sort of a little bit of a hub for animation,” Shemrock said.
A Graduate’s Path Into The Industry
Catherine Zhao knows the value of that hub firsthand. After seven years studying biomedical science and Chinese medicine, she switched gears entirely, enrolling in Algonquin’s animation program determined to make it her career.
Zhao graduated in 2026 and now works remotely with Flashgitz, a Los Angeles animation studio. Her break came through a connection made while volunteering at the festival, a reminder of how showing up and getting involved in Ottawa’s animation community can open doors.
Frame By Frame At The Ottawa Art Gallery
As part of the festival’s 50th anniversary programming, the Ottawa Art Gallery is hosting Frame by Frame: Animation in Ottawa, an exhibition celebrating the city’s animation history. Among the films on display is Sam Chou’s The Death of James, a short that follows two friends through the loss of a cherished pet ferret.
Chou, an Ottawa native with more than 25 years in animation, spent 15 years trying to get the project made before Lakeside Animation stepped in to produce it during a gap in their schedule. “We were able to produce it with this group of 10,” he said. “It turned out to be one of the best projects I’ve ever worked on.”
A Medium For Any Story
Both Chou and Zhao see plenty of room for animation to keep evolving, from new digital tools that make filmmaking more accessible to artists finding fresh platforms like YouTube to share their work. For Chou, the appeal of the medium itself never gets old.
“Animation is not just for kids,” he said. “It’s not a genre. It’s a medium to tell any sort of story.” Fifty years in, Ottawa’s animation community is still proving him right, one frame at a time.