Banksy’s identity is…

UPDATE: As pretty much everyone expected, this was a PR stunt and the short film is actually just an animation. Screw you Encounters International Film Festival! Don’t such dicks next time.

About to be revealed. Maybe. Or maybe not. Or maybe it was revealed a while ago and we’ve wisely chosen to believe he is still anonymous because it’s better that way.

Canimation, a series of short films that combine graffiti and animation and part of Encounters International Film Festival, claims to have CCTV footage of Banksy that conclusively shows his identity. The CCTV footage was apparently captured when Banksy painted something on a building where Aardman, an animation studio, is located.

From UK Street Art:

Animation Programme manager, Keiran Argo, programmed the Canimation strand of the festival to act as a celebration for Bristol’s involvement in both animation and street art development.

Kieran said: “The programme would have been incomplete without a local contribution so the hunt was on for something special. What Banksy didn’t bargain for when recently stencilling the back wall of Aardman’s new building was the discrete CCTV system they had installed allowing us, for the first time, to put a face to the name. All will be revealed in the programme…’

Anyone else think this is probably just a PR stunt and that perhaps this supposed CCTV video is actually an animation or something? I really hope it is, because I don’t want Banksy’s identity to be proven conclusively. Eine and Shepard Fairey have both mentioned that Banksy doesn’t paint a lot of his own street work, so why would he have painted this particular piece that got captured on CCTV? If the footage is real, it could easily be one of his assistants.

The film screens in Bristol at Encounters International Film Festival on November 20th at 9pm.

Here are some of Banksy’s self portraits from over the years:

Photo by JasonBlait
Banksy for Wired
Banksy for Time Out

Photos by/courtesy of Time Out, Wired and JasonBlait