‘The Colors Within’ Director Naoko Yamada To Headline Kilkenny Animated 2026

Japanese filmmaker Naoko Yamada (The Colors Within) will serve as guest director of this year’s Kilkenny Animated, leading a three-day program of screenings, masterclasses, workshops, and industry talks in Kilkenny, Ireland, running September 11–13.

Yamada, whose credits include A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird, and The Colors Within, will give a director’s masterclass focused on her creative process, influences, and approach to storytelling. The session will feature clips from her films and translation throughout.

The festival will also screen A Silent Voice and The Colors Within, with Yamada personally introducing the latter.

Graphic designer Annie Atkins will also attend this year’s event and present “Storytelling Through Things,” a look at how props and other seemingly ordinary objects contribute to cinematic worldbuilding. Atkins’ screen credits include Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, and The French Dispatch.

Author and animation historian Helen McCarthy will deliver an illustrated talk tracing anime’s arrival and development in Western markets. McCarthy will also participate in “East West Anime,” a panel examining how culture, language, and translation influence the way anime is received internationally. The discussion will be moderated by Toho Europe chief content officer Andrew Partridge and will also feature animation historian Charles Solomon.

Partridge will introduce the Irish and U.K. premiere of Tomohiko Ito’s The Keeper of the Camphor Tree, the upcoming anime feature adapted from Keigo Higashino’s novel.

Kilkenny’s local creative community will be well represented throughout the weekend, too. Members of independent publishing collective The Zine Machine will join author and comedian Aoife Dooley for a discussion of the process behind producing four editions of their collaborative zine.

The festival’s artist market will return for a third year, offering original work by artists and illustrators from the region’s animation community. Kilkenny-based Cartoon Saloon will also host a signing for The Art of Cartoon Saloon: 25 Years, a new visual retrospective devoted to the studio behind Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea, and The Secret of Kells.

Kilkenny Animated is organized by Cartoon Saloon, Lighthouse Studios, and Schweppe Curtis Nunn Events. The festival was established as an intimate, craft-oriented gathering bringing animation professionals and audiences together in the medieval Irish city.

Tickets for individual events will go on sale Friday, July 31.