Approaching the subject of labiaplasty, a cosmetic procedure to change the appearance of labia, is definitely a challenge. Doing it with animation is even more so. Director Ellie Land, however, manages both with aplomb in Centrefold, one of the shorts in competition at this year’s festival in November. UnderWire’s Newcastle Ambassador, Stephanie Oswald, met with Ellie to talk about here film

“You know, talking about genital cutting is not something that we do very often anyway, and then to do it in quite an accessible form like animation, just brings it out of the space where it would normally be talked about…A flying sequence, to describe the ups and downs of how women feel about their labia surgery, would be quite difficult to achieve in live action…you would probably try and talk about it in a different way. But it’s about communicating these ideas through animation in a way that I feel is much more emotive than a talking head shot of that person talking about labia surgery.”

You can read a transcript of the interview, or listen to the podcast, here.