The creative brains behind Wallace and Gromit and Bugs Bunny are being celebrated at this year’s Bradford Animation Festival.

Now in its 19th year, the festival returns to the National Media Museum next week with screenings of more than 100 films from around the world.

This year’s festival has its biggest-ever BAF Kids programme of events for families and young fans of animation and gaming.

Two weekends of special events will feature workshops and screenings aimed at inspiring the next generation of games developers. And there’s a chance to catch blockbuster animated movies such as Brave and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, alongside screenings from up-and-coming young animators.

Creative workshops include The Pirates! Animation Stations, giving visitors the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Oscar-winning animators Aardman by creating clay characters and a mini animated adventure. There will also be sessions on the history of animation, with demonstrations from the museum’s extensive collection of optical toys, and exploring the science behind the latest developments in CGI.

The BAF Game festival strand offers a weekend of family-friendly workshops, from experimenting with computer programming to papercraft videogame modelling. There will also be chance to play classic games in their original arcade formats, such as Space Invaders and Donkey Kong, and find out about the history of gaming in the Games Lounge.

Headline speakers at BAF Game include Neil Thompson, director of art and animation at Canadian studio BioWare, creators of Dragon Age and the Mass Effects series.

Festival director Deb Singleton said: ‘’We recognise that the experts we invite from around the world to speak at BAF and BAF Game all started out as young fans, and BAF Kids is an exciting opportunity for us to harness the creativity of the next generation of animators and games developers.

“Whether you want to delve into the science, get creative, or just sit back and watch, we’re confident there’s something in this year’s BAF Kids programme for families and children of all ages and abilities.’’ This year’s headline guests are Will Becher, the creative chief behind the Wallace and Gromit films. Since joining Aardman as a trainee animator on the stop motion duo’s big-screen adventure Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Mr Becher has become one of its top animators, working on TV shows Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep. He will talk about his career and his work as lead animator on latest Aardman movie The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

Another special guest is Mark Shapiro, marketing and brand manager at US studio LAIKA, makers of this summer’s hit family movie ParaNorman.

He will present a behind-the-scenes look at the film – about a boy who takes on ghosts, zombies and grown-ups to save his town from a centuries-old curse – and take part in a question-and-answer session prior to a 3D screening of ParaNorman.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes posthumously to John Halas, co-writer/director of the first British animated feature film, Animal Farm. The award commemorates the 100th anniversary of Mr Halas’s birth. The documentary Animated Utopia: The Life and Achievements of John Halas, 1912-1995, will have its final-cut world premiere and his daughter, Vivien Halas, will sit on the BAF jury.

Animation legend Chuck Jones’s granddaughter Valerie Kausen will share memories of working with her grandfather, highlighting a screening of classic shorts from the man behind much-loved cartoons such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

Other guests include film-maker Robert Morgan, writer-director of The Cat With Hands, a dark tale of a cat that wants to be human, and stop-motion horror animation Bobby Yeah.

More than 140 films will be screened over the five-day festival, including Crulic, a mixed-media animated documentary about Romanian prisoner Claudio Crulic’s death following his hunger strike in a Polish jail, and Approved For Adoption, the autobiographical story of Korean-Belgian comic book artist Jung’s childhood, told through a mix of animation, live action and home-movie footage.

Deb Singleton said festival-goers can expect one of most diverse line-ups ever. “We’ll also be showcasing a brilliant programme of films, from undiscovered gems to some of the most acclaimed feature animations of 2012,” she added.