Manchester Animation Festival

Sgà and the Wulver

In a land where magic is waning and man is reigning, a young warrior girl dreams of following in the footsteps of her idol, Bàs, the land’s greatest monster hunter. But when the beast she pursues is far from the evil she was taught to hate, she must face a truth that will change her life forever.

Through an engaging story set in a magical world, the film raises important questions relevant to our modern day: what happens to a culture when the stories it tells about itself are replaced by the stories others tell about it? And what does it cost when fear of difference is allowed to do the work of understanding?

Sgà and the Wulver is feature-length animated musical film for family audiences rooted in Gaelic culture. Its aesthetic follows the structure of the story, with two visually distinct worlds – one fully 3D and one watercolour 2D –  bleeding into each other.

John McEwan-Whyte

John McEwan-Whyte is a Scottish filmmaker, writer, and producer, and the founder and CEO of Bonnie & Braw — an Edinburgh-based group encompassing animation studio Bonnie & Braw Cartùns and live-action outfit Bonnie & Braw Productions. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics from the University of Glasgow and an MFA in Playwriting from Edinburgh Napier University. Bonnie & Braw Cartùns was founded in 2024 and has moved quickly — winning the Scottish EDGE Award (the first ever awarded to an animation company in Scotland) and the FOCUS Best Newcomer Award in 2025. The studio’s current slate spans preschool, children’s, and adult animation, with projects at various stages of development and finance. John is neurodivergent, and has built Bonnie & Braw as a neurodivergent-led company with inclusion embedded in its culture from the ground up.