The Annecy Animation Festival hosted its closing ceremony on Saturday, the place there have been two clear winners from the principle function movie competitors. Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail” took Annecy’s high award, the Cristal for greatest function, and Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow” scooped nearly all the things else.
Australian stop-motion function “Memoir of a Snail” is the newest from Elliot, an Academy Award winner who scored the animated brief statue in 2004 along with his stop-motion movie “Harvie Krumpet.” This time round, the director presents the heartstring-pulling story of Grace Pudel, a lonely misfit who loves accumulating snails.
“There’s a magic to 100%-CG-free stop-motion, with its cellophane flames and tears product of sexual lubricant,” wrote Selection Chief Movie Critic Peter Debruge in his review of the movie. “Don’t be stunned if ‘Memoir’ has you shedding actual ones in your seat.”
Zilbalodis’ “Circulation” received a four-pack of honors at this 12 months’s pageant: the Gan Basis Award for Distribution, the Viewers Award and the Jury Award, in addition to the particular prize for greatest authentic music, awarded on Friday night.
“Circulation,” a Latvia-Belgium-France co-production, was a favourite heading into this 12 months’s Annecy after an enormous exhibiting in Cannes, the place it was one in every of its buzziest titles, animated or live-action. The movie will now hope to observe a just lately worn path for animated options, comparable to “Robotic Desires” and “I Misplaced My Physique,” which begins at Cannes, passes by Annecy, and ends on the Academy Awards with an Oscar nomination.
The Grand Prix from this 12 months’s Contrechamp competitors strand went to Isabel Herguera’s Spanish function “Sultana’s Dream,” a three-part painterly function pushed by a Spanish artist dwelling in India who discovers a (real-life) ebook a few land the place ladies rule and males stay in seclusion. Nearing the tip of its pageant run, the movie beforehand scored a pair of awards at San Sebastian and a greatest worldwide function win at Anima-Brussels.
Portugal was this 12 months’s Annecy Nation of Honor and, appropriately, the Cristal for greatest brief went to “Percebes” from Portuguese filmmakers Alexandra Ramires and Laura Gonçalves, each tapped as Portuguese talents to track by Selection at first of this 12 months’s pageant. Gonçalves’ earlier movie, “The Rubbish Man,” on which Ramires labored as an animator, competed at Annecy and received greatest brief at Zagreb in 2022. Ramires’s 2020 brief “Tie,” on which Gonçalves labored as an animator, screened in competitors at Zagreb and Toronto.
Animated in painterly 2D and produced by BAP – Animation Studio, “Percebes” exemplifies Portugal’s best animation achievement so far: Shorts and occasional options of excessive inventive ambition and social level. It is usually set aside by its extraordinary real-life soundtrack, a method Gonçalves perfected in “The Rubbish Man.”
This 12 months’s high TV movie was Sophie Roze’s “The Drifting Guitar,” an enthralling 30-minute spot made utilizing cut-outs and puppet animation. Roze’s 2010 stop-motion brief “Les escargots de Joseph” was nominated for a European Movie Award, and in 2012, she received best-animated movie on the Dresden Movie Competition with “Whale Fowl.”
The 2024 Cristal for a commissioned movie went to Will Anderson’s Pictoplasma “Opener 2023.” Anderson is a BATFA-winning filmmaker from Scotland whose brief “The Making of Longbird” received greatest commencement movie at Annecy in 2012.
Daniel Sterlin-Altman, a Movie College Babelsberg Konrad Wolf alum, received the Cristal for a commencement brief with “Carroptica,” a stop-motion providing about anthropomorphized carrots navigating lust and loneliness within the queerest of the way. This one is for adults solely.
Boris Labbé’s brief “Glass Home” received the Off Limits Award. The distinction is noteworthy because the movie was made utilizing generative AI, and Labbé featured in an Annecy roundtable about using synthetic intelligence in animation. A number of movies which featured AI-generated paintings have been booed at this 12 months’s pageant and Annecy distributing a prize to one of many showcased movies will definitely increase a couple of eyebrows.
On Thursday night, Annecy awarded animation super-producer Bonnie Arnold (“Tips on how to Practice Your Dragon,” “Toy Story”) with the pageant’s Golden Ticket throughout a reception for members of the Academy of Movement Photos Arts and Sciences.
Along with unveiling this 12 months’s award winners, Annecy introduced that Hungary will likely be subsequent 12 months’s nation of honor.
Under, an entire listing of this 12 months’s Annecy prize winners, together with Particular Prizes unveiled on Friday night.
FEATURE FILMS
Cristal for a Characteristic Movie
“Memoir of a Snail,” (Adam Elliot, Australia)
Jury Award
“Circulation,” (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
Viewers Award
“Circulation,” (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
Gan Basis Award for Distribution
“Circulation,” (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
Paul Grimault Award
“Totto-Chan: The Little Woman on the Window,” (Shinnosuke Yakuwa, Japan)
CONTRECHAMP FEATURES
Grand Prix
“Sultana’s Dream,” (Isabel Herguera, Spain, Germany)
Jury Award
“Dwelling Giant,” (Kristina Dufková, Czech Republic, Slovakia, France)
SHORT FILMS
Cristal for a Quick Movie
“Percebes,” ( Alexandra Ramires, Laura Gonçalves, Portugal, France)
Jury Award
“The Automobile That Got here Again from the Sea,” (Jadwiga Kowalska, Switzerland)
Viewers Award
“Hurikán,” (Jan Saska, Czech Republic, France, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Off-Limits Award
“Glass Home,” (Boris Labbé, France)
Alexeïeff – Parker Award
“Stunning Males,” (Nicolas Keppens, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Movie
“[S],” (Mario Radev, U.Ok.)
TV AWARDS
Cristal for a TV Manufacturing
“The Drifting Guitar,” (Sophie Roze, France, Switzerland)
Jury Award for a TV Collection
“My Life in Versailles “Versailles Ghost”,” (Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat, Nathaniel H’limi, France, Luxembourg)
Jury Award for a TV Particular
“Lola et le Piano à bruits,” (Augusto Zanovello, France, Poland, Switzerland)
Viewers Award
“The Drifting Guitar,” (Sophie Roze, France, Switzerland)
COMMISSIONED FILMS
Cristal for a Commissioned Movie
“Pictoplasma,” (Will Anderson, U.Ok.)
Jury Award for a Commissioned Movie
“TED-Ed ‘How Did South African Apartheid Occur, and How Did It Lastly Finish?’,” (Aya Marzouk, U.S., South Africa, Egypt)
GRADUATION FILMS
Cristal for a Commencement Movie
“Carrotica,” (Daniel Sterlin-Altman, Germany)
Jury Award
“Pubert Jimbob,” (Quirijn Dees, Belgium)
Lotte Reiniger Award
“Maatitel,” (Govinda Sao, India)
VR WORKS
Cristal for the Greatest VR Work
“Gargoyle Doyle,” (Ethan Shaftel, U.S., Austria, Argentina)
SPECIAL PRIZES
Metropolis of Annecy Award
“The Meatseller,” (Margherita GiustI, Italy)
France TV Award for a Quick Movie
“The Automobile That Got here Again from the Sea,” (Jadwiga Kowalska, Switzerland)
André Martin Award for a French Quick Movie
“Butterfly,” (Florence Miailhe, France)
Greatest Authentic Music Award for a Quick Movie
“Joko,” (Aliaksandr Yasinski, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic)
Greatest Authentic Music Award for a Characteristic Movie
“Circulation,” (Rihards Zalupe, Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
Younger Viewers Award
“Hey Summer time,” (Martin Smatana, Veronika Zacharová, Slovakia, Czech Republic, France)
Canal+ Junior Jury Award
“Noodles au Naturel,” (Matteo Salanave Piazza, France)
Festivals Connexion Award
“Stunning Males,” (Nicolas Keppens, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
Festivals Connexion VR Award
“Emperor,” (Marion Burger, Ilan Cohen, France, Germany)
