A Welsh animated short film, created and worked on by graduates of USW’s Film and TV School Wales, has been nominated for an Oscar.

Affairs of the Art, made by Joanna Quinn, an Animation graduate of USW, and Les Mills, former course leader at USW, is on the shortlist in the Best Animated Short Film category at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Joanna and Les established Beryl Productions in the 1980s, and specialise in hand-drawn character animation. Affairs of the Art tells the story of Beryl, a 59-year-old factory worker who’s obsessed with drawing and determined to become a hyper-futurist artist. The new film continues the Beryl series, which began with 1987’s Girls’ Night Out, followed by 1990’s Body Beautiful and 2006’s Dreams and Desires: Family Ties, and has already won more than 20 awards from festivals around the world.

Among the 11 alumni who worked on the film were Mia Rose Goddard, James Nutting, Eliot Cseh, Bryony Evans, Gemma Roberts, Becky Peel, Alex Thompson, Yoana Georgieva, Daniel Evans and Lauren Orme.

A host of other graduates have also been recognised in this year’s Oscar nominations. Rosie Walker and Ben Brown, who both studied Visual Effects & Motion Graphics at USW, were part of the team working on sci-fi adventure movie Dune, which is listed in 10 award categories. Rosie also worked on The Matrix Resurrections, which has been nominated for a Bafta for Special Visual Effects.

Amy Carpenter, Visual Effects and Motion Graphics graduate, and Computer Animation graduate Jakub Kupcik, worked on Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has been nominated for Best Visual Effects.

Tom Ware, Director of Production and Performance at USW, said:

“To see so many of our Film and TV School Wales graduates featured at the highest levels in the industry, on such a globally-recognised roll call of achievement is fantastic. Once again, the creativity and professionalism of our graduates is testament to the talent and opportunities nurtured during their studies here at USW.”

Final Oscar voting begins on 17 March and ends on 22 March 2022, with the 94th Annual Academy Awards ceremony taking place on Sunday 27 March in Los Angeles.