Inner City animator wins Gobelins scholarship

Here’s our feel-good story of the day: Dante Buford, 22, who recently completed his B.A. in animation at Loyola Marymount University, was selected by Gobelins to participate in the highly selective character animation workshop in Paris this summer.

According to information provided to us by LMU:

Born in the city of Whittier and raised in Pico Rivera, Buford moved to Los Angeles at the age of 13 and then relocated to Inglewood his senior year of high school. A member of the Crenshaw High School class of 2007, Buford’s first exposure to higher education was attending the LMU Summer Creative Workshop. Each year, a group of talented youth from the Los Angeles inner city are mentored by LMU faculty while creating films. After attending the summer program at LMU, he eagerly applied to the School of Film and Television his senior year at Crenshaw. Upon his acceptance to LMU, he was awarded the Cosgrove Family Endowment Scholarship, which covered his tuition and expenses throughout his four-year undergraduate education.

Buford’s senior project, Interview (image above), is a short animated film about a Mom stressing out over a job interview who is sabotaged by a vindictive woman competing for the same position. This trip marks Buford’s first out of the state of California and first time flying on an airplane.

My sincerest congratulations to Dante Buford, and his classmate Christina “Kiki” Manrique who was also selected to attend the Gobelins workshop, on winning this opportunity. We look forward to posting your films here in the future.