Dick Arnall

Born 1944-07-14 · Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England, UK

Died 2007-02-06

Dick Arnall was a British independent animation producer and festival director who spent forty years championing artist-made animation. He founded the Cambridge Animation Festival, which ran in 1965, 1967 and 1968, worked on George Dunning's Yellow Submarine (1968), and was assistant managing director of Halas and Batchelor from 1969 to 1972. He produced Tim Webb's A Is for Autism (1992), Ruth Lingford's Death and the Mother (1997) and Robert Bradbrook's Home Road Movies (2001). A Is for Autism and Home Road Movies were both nominated for the BAFTA for Best Short Animation. From 1990 to 1998 he was production adviser to animate!, the Channel 4 and Arts Council scheme for experimental animation, and saw 35 films to completion, among them Phil Mulloy's Cowboys (1991) and Mario Cavalli's Soho Square (1992). From 2000 his company Finetake ran the scheme, and he was executive producer of Run Wrake's Rabbit (2005). He died in London in 2007, aged 62. The Dick Arnall Award at the Aurora festival is named after him.