Phil Mulloy, my life partner, who has died aged 76, was one of Britain’s most fiercely independent voices in animation, known for the dark wit and distinctive visual style of his films.
He found international acclaim with Cowboys (1991), a series of six short films that parodied westerns and masculinity, and were produced by Channel 4 and the Arts Council. Later his Ten Commandments shorts (1994–96) and the Intolerance trilogy (2000–04) offered brutal, funny critiques of ideology and human cruelty.
Phil rejected slick studio polish in favour of rawness, rage and provocation, and as a result developed a cult following as an “anti-animator”. His work was celebrated in retrospectives and DVD collections, including with the British Film Institute’s Phil Mulloy: Extreme Animation (1999) and several releases in France by ED Distribution.
Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, Phil was the son of Michael Mulloy, a labourer, and Margaret (nee Griffin) a factory worker. Educated by the Christian Brothers at St Anselm’s college, a grammar school in Birkenhead, he initially wanted to be a priest but ultimately moved away from religion.
He studied painting at Ravensbourne College (now Ravensbourne University London), and he and I met when he moved on to the Royal College of Art in the early 1970s. We married in 1976. Those years were full of idealism and chaos; we lived together in a squat in Brixton, arguing politics and sharing a love of experimental film.
Phil began his career in live-action with a portrait, Fragments of a Biography (1980), about the painter Mark Gertler, which was co-written with Antony Sher, who also starred in it. His next film, Give Us This Day (1983), about Robert Tressell, author of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, won a Grierson award.
However, Phil gradually began to feel constrained by the compromises involved in making long-form drama, and so he moved into animation in the late 80s, working alone with brush and ink, a simple approach that gave him freedom to express himself.
Eventually his Christies series, started in 2006, marked a shift in working practice to low-fi digital image creation and computer-generated voices. The Christies won the Mercury Filmworks prize at the Ottawa International Animation festival, as did two others that followed, Goodbye Mister Christie (2008) and Dead But Not Buried (2010). Phil’s 2015 short Endgame won the Grand Prix at Animafest Zagreb, where he was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in 2024.
Phil was once asked at the London animation festival what it felt like to be called the enfant terrible of British animation. He responded: “To be called anything is actually quite nice. Recently, I was called ‘brilliant’ and ‘rubbish’ for the same film … perfect.” Phil loved to provoke thought and inflame debate. He never stopped working and made more than 60 films in all. He also mentored young animators and taught masterclasses, and continued to sketch out ideas to the very end.
He brought the same care and love to his family as he did to his film work. He is survived by me, our children, Lucy and Daniel, and our grandchildren, Layla and Julian.