Jun 12, 2017

Animafest2017 Winner: Female Filmmakers and experimental CGI Dominate

As the awards were presented last Saturday at Animafest Zagreb, a couple trends quickly became clear: women filmmakers and experimental cg films were dominating the evening.

A majority of the winners at the 27th edition of Animafest, the world's second-oldest animation festival, fell into one of these two categories. Women took top honors in most of the categories, including Grand Prix for short film, best student film, best children's film, best Croatian film, and audience award for short film. The only major category not won by a woman was the Grand Prix for feature film, in which all nine features in competition were directed by men.

Meanwhile, experimental cg projects took four of the eight honors in the short film category, which was juried by filmmakers Michaela Pavlátová, Rosto, and Marko Tadic, New Chitose festival director Nobuaki Doi, and myself.

We presented the festival's Grand Prix for short film to Špela Cadež's Nighthawk (Slovenia / Croatia), recognizing the “seemingly simple but surprisingly complex film” for how it “adds a new layer to a traditional animation technique of multiplane cut-out” and “uses parallel storytelling to switch between different perceptions to effectively create an extremely engaging tragedy of a man/animal.” Nighthawk isn't online (see trailer below), but Cadež's earlier film, Boles, premiered on the internet earlier this year.

The Grand Prix for feature film was awarded to Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle (France/Belgium/Japan). The feature jury, consisting of Natalia Lukinykh, Ben Mitchell, and Simon Bogojevic Narath, cited the film as “a celebration of both the unforgiving brutality of nature, as well as its life-affirming beauty that lingers with the audience for long after.”

In the student film competition, the Dušan Vukotic Award for the best student film went to Renata Gasiorowska's fun and meaningful Pussy, made at the National Film School in Lodz, Poland. The jury, comprised of Alberto Vázquez, Jana Jakoubek, and Sandra Malenica, gave this statement on the film:

The same jury awarded the best Croatian film to Chintis Lundgren's Manivald (Estonia/Croatia/Canada), another unique piece of cartooning that uses a quirky sense of humor to explore an unhealthy mother-son relationship.

On the cg front, the machinima film Martin Cries (France) by Jonathan Vinel won the Golden Zagreb Award for creativity and innovative artistic achievement. The short film jury said of the 16-minute film:

Each of the five short film jury members were given the opportunity to present one special mention award, and three of the five jury chose cg shorts: Rosto selected Orogenesis by the French director Boris Labbé, Nobuaki Doi selected Nikita Diakur's Ugly (Germany), and I personally selected Jonathan Ostrem's Change (Canada). These films, together with Martin Cries, represent promising new directions in cg filmmaking that veer away from the prevailing trend of photorealism and explore creative expression through the use of satellite imagery and 3D models, simulations, and real-time rendering techniques.

A complete list of winners is below:

SHORT FILM COMPETITIONGrand Prix – Short FilmNighthawk by Špela Cadež (Slovenia/Croatia)

Golden Zagreb Award for creativity/artistic achievementMartin Cries by Jonathan Vinel (France)

Zlatko Grgic Award for best first filmAmalimbo by Juan Pablo Libossart (Sweden/Estonia)

Special mention by Michaela PavlátováSore Eyes For Infinity by Elli Vuorinen (Finland)

Special mention by RostoOrogenesis by Boris Labbé (Spain)

Special mention by Marko TadicHedgehog's Home by Eva Cvijanovic (Canada/Croatia)

Special mention by Nobuaki DoiUgly by Nikita Diakur (Germany)

Special mention by Amid AmidiChange by Jonathan Ostrem (Canada)

Grand Prix – Feature FilmThe Red Turtle by Michael Dudok de Wit (France, Belgium, Japan)

Special mentionLouise by the Shore by Jean-François Laguionie (France/Canada)

Special mentionThe Girl Without Hands by Sébastien Laudenbach (France)

Dušan Vukotic Award for best best student filmPussy by Renata Gasiorowska (National Film School, Poland)

Special mentionSummer's Puke is Winter's Delight by Sawako Kabuki (Tama Art University, Japan)

Special mentionMy Father's Room by Nari Jang (K'ARTS, South Korea)

Best Croatian filmManivald by Chintis Lundgren (Estonia/Croatia/Canada)

Special mentionThe Last Quest bv Božidar Trkulja

Special mention for best minority stake Croatian film Airport by Michaela Müller (Switzerland/Croatia)

WinnerThe Drive to Work by Paul Fletcher (Australia)

Special mentionThe Climate by Marita Stanic and Maja Blažek (Croatia)

Best film for childrenLeave A Print by Christina Susanne Nerland (U.K.)

Special mentionOdd is an Egg by Kristin Ulseth (Norway)

Short filmHedgehog's Home by Eva Cvijanovic (Croatia)

Feature filmMy Life as A Zucchini by Claude Barras (Switzerland/France)