FILM-MAKERS of the future are to see their work on the big screen at a York festival.

Short films inspired by exhibits in the York Castle Museum are to be shown at the attraction's galleries during the anim8ed festival.

The event, which started on Saturday and runs until October 31, aims to bring the museum's social history to life for visitors.

The films were created by York groups working with professional animators.

Children aged nine, ten and 11 from Headlands Primary School in Haxby, York, worked with animator Vikaas Mistry to create a film inspired by the Hearth Gallery.

The film uses pictures drawn by the children, comparing the heavy iron domestic equipment of the nineteenth century with the electrical appliances used in modern kitchens today.

Sixth-formers from Huntington School, York, created two short films inspired by the Military Gallery with animator Richard Jousiffe. The first shows soldiers being conscripted during wartime as victims on an army production line.

The second shows a lone soldier, faced with an approaching army of enemies, trying to choose between weapons from different periods in history.

A group of young adults aged 16 to 25 from York's Future Prospects learning and work advice centre were behind a film called Cradle To Grave.

Working with animator Clive Tonge, they created a movie which takes the viewer on a journey from life to death through Georgian times, the Victorian era and into the twentieth century.

Updated: 10:50 Monday, May 03, 2004