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For voice actors, the future of animation has never been more exciting.
At this year’s Animation Now programme at SQIFF 2025, it’s clear that the industry is moving into the realm of vocal storytelling. These films experiment boldly with how voices – in their tone, breath, and rhythm – can carry emotion and meaning. A wordless murmur can feel as human as a monologue; a shift in cadence can move a scene as powerfully as a visual cut. Animation is discovering new ways for voices to live within them – and that opens up an entirely new creative landscape for voice actors.
What’s most striking is how different each of the films are, and yet how clearly they speak to one another. So, let’s explore the stories that are giving us a glimpse of animation and voice acting’s next evolution.
Fried!
Fried (dir. Lizzie Watts) is an enigma of a short film. The short follows Dev, a nervous technician leaving an ageing nuclear facility. On his drive home through the remote countryside, his van breaks down near an isolated emu farm run by two older, married women. What begins as a tense folk-horror evolves into something stranger, funnier, and unexpectedly uplifting – and that tonal shift is amplified through the film’s vocal performances.
From the outset, Dev’s voiceover delivery (portrayed by Tommy Howlett) establishes the tone. His performance is understated, yet expressive, characterised by nervous hesitations and subtle inflections that communicate anxiety and unease. Howlett, who is also an animation director, brings a notable sensitivity to vocal nuance.
“The character is awkward and non-confrontational, and I was able to embody that easily because being awkward is relatable to me,” he explained to Voquent.
Howlett’s experience directing others in voiceover appears to inform his own approach – he knows what to listen for, how to place his breaths, and where to place tonal emphasis. As he reflects, his directing background “certainly helped” with his performance, allowing him to “be in tune with Lizzie (Watts)’ directing style, which, in Fried!, had a mysterious, yet ironic tone.” It raises an intriguing industry question: does familiarity with the directorial side of voiceover make it easier to perform effectively behind the microphone? Fried! suggests that it can.
Counterbalancing Dev’s anxious narration are the eccentric, otherworldly performance of the two women, voiced by Australian-British actress Linda Marlowe, and British actress Louise Fitzpatrick. Their delivery is gravelly, rhythmically precise, and laced with dry humour. They refer to Dev’s shoes as ‘feet prisons’ with both menace and mirth, embodying a performance style that feels simultaneously comedic and sinister. The specificity of their phrasing, and the deliberate cadence of each line, gives them an uncanny charm – an effect that sits somewhere between horror and absurdist.
What’s most interesting about the women’s voiceover is how little it changes even as the story pivots dramatically in tone.
When the film transitions from eerie rural horror to a euphoric, rave-like sequence, their transformation occurs through a precise recalibration of texture, breath, and timing. The gravelly rasp that once suggested threat begins to sound more like knowing amusement; pauses that once created tension now feel more like generosity – as though spaces have been made for Dev to speak. Their diction relaxes, consonants soften, and rhythm elongates.
These are small changes; but they radically alter how the audience perceives intent. It’s a subtle showcase of how restraint in voiceover can achieve profound tonal shifts – rather than signalling emotion through obvious variation, Marlowe and Watts allow character and atmosphere to evolve through pacing, breathwork, and microtonal modulation. The result is an aural continuity that bridges two emotional worlds – horror and release – without ever breaking the internal logic of the performance.
By the film’s conclusion, Dev’s fearful tone has evolved into something almost serene, whilst the couple’s ominous edge gives way to gentle optimism. The result is an emotional arc guided not only by visuals, but by the texture, pacing, and modulation of voiceover. Ultimately, Fried! stands as an inventive example of how strong voiceover direction and performance can carry a film through stark tonal contrasts. Its success lies in the details – the quiet tremor of fear, the dry wit of an odd phrase, and the carefully calibrated rhythm that turns horror into something unexpectedly human.
The Last Garden
The Last Garden (dir. Eloise Jenninger) is a heart-warming short film. In this, amidst the noise, fumes, and grey sprawl of the city lies a fragile oasis: a community garden that blooms. It is here that our protagonist, Henry, finds respite from the daily grind, a bucolic escape that offers belonging. But this garden is imperilled. The land is marked for demolition and construction, and as the deadline approaches, Henry and his peers cannot agree on how best to save it. Environmentalism, collectivism, and the power of human organising emerge as key thematic undercurrents, casting the garden as both a literal and symbolic site of struggle.
The use of voice in the short film is poignant.
Dialogue, in the traditional sense, is absent. Instead, the film relies on grunts, hums, sighs, and small vocal bursts – sounds that, though minimal, reverberate with enormous emotional weight. A gentle hum conveys contentment, a sharp exhale marks annoyance, and together these small vocalisations showcase the sheer potency of the human voice when stripped back to its rawest form. These fragments of sound punctuate the narrative with a deeply human texture, imbuing the film with both realism and optimism.
This minimal but impactful voice acting becomes the glue between the film’s themes and its storytelling. It reminds us that even when words fail – or when communities disagree – our shared humanity is expressed in the most elemental forms of communication. In highlighting these little nuggets of humanity, The Last Garden emerges as a meditation on collectivist spirit: whilst the community may quarrel over strategy, it is unified in its voice – however fractured, however small. The voice acting embodies its ethos, underscoring the resilience of communal life and the indominable human spirit that thrives.
Two Black Boys in Paradise
Two Black Boys in Paradise (dir. By Baz Sells) is a deeply moving short that demonstrates the transformative power of love. The film pairs Dean Atta’s poetic words with a beautifully rendered animated backdrop, whilst the voiceover narration breathes life into this metaphysical exploration of love and oppression. The result is a beautiful exploration of yearning and tenderness, as well as a damning indictment on societal oppression and injustice.
Narrated by Jordan Stephens – best known as one half of British hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks – the film is elevated by his intimate, fragile, yet bold delivery. Every pause, breath, and shift in tone brings emotional weight, allowing the audience to feel the tenderness of two boys in love whilst also holding the gravity of being Black and Queer in a world that often resists their existence. The result is an Edenic space where vulnerability and strength co-exist.
What makes the short film so striking is how seamlessly the voiceover intertwines with the animation.
The narration and visuals exist in symbiosis, showing just how much of an impact voiceovers can make. Tender, artful, and full of grace, the film is a testament to the power of voice acting as pure meaning.
Dragfox
Dragfox (dir. By Lisa Ott) is tender, warm, and majestic. At its heart is Sam, a child adrift in a sea of question regarding identity and belonging. Sam comes across a talking fox, Gingersnap, who emerges in a burst of wit and warmth, steering the emotional rhythm of the film. Voiced by the one and only Sir Ian McKellen, Gingersnap is a real presence – rich with theatricality without ever being histrionic, with his presence lending the short both gravity and grace.
McKellen brings his legendary stage sensibility to the role, delivering lines with a musical precision that dances between playful and profound. His voice is sonorous but never overbearing, as he speaks not at Sam, but to them, with a kind of knowing gentleness that softens even the most declarative of lines. McKellen modulates tone with astonishing subtlety – as the film progresses, the early tenderness in McKellen’s voice remains, but by the film’s ending, it’s tinged with play and pride. Dragfox emerges as a wonderfully tender film with brilliant vocal performances.
As we wrap up, it becomes clear that the future of animation looks deeply exciting. We can’t wait to see what else is in store.
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