British animation has swept the board at this year’s Annecy awards held over the weekend in Paris. The animation festival’s top award, the Cristal for Best Feature went to Christopher Nielsen’s UK-Norway co-production “Free Jimmy“, which also features and English-language screenplay by Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz’s Simon Pegg and boasting current Doctor Who David Tennant, the fantastic Samantha Morton (Minority Report, Morven Caller), Emelia Fox and Jim Broadbent among its voice talent. “Free Jimmy” (a riff on “Free Willy”) is the first fully computer animated feature film from Norway and also the second most expensive made their, which probably partly explains why it ended up as a co-production with the UK.
(scene from Free Jimmy – you have to like a movie with the tagline “Four Stoners, three gangsters, five vegans and a million reasons to free one junkie elephant”. You can check out more on the official site)
Another UK co-production – this time between Britain, Switzerland, Belgium and France – “Max & Co” by Samuel and Frederic Guillaume picked up the audience award for best feature while in a remarkable feat UK animators took home every Cristal in the TV categories, with “Still Life” from the “Shaun the Sheep” by Christopher Sadler (Aardman Animation) winning best TV production, Kez Margrie’s “The Wrong Trainers” picking up the Best TV Special gong as well as the UNICEF Prize (Children’s BBC has an article on it here along with links to view the shorts which make up The Wrong Trainers), while “I Will Be Especially Very Careful” from the “Charlie and Lola” series got an award for Kitty Taylor (the series is based on the popular children’s pictures books by Lauren Child, one of which, “I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato” won the Kate Greenaway Medal). Further UK success was to be seen with Daniel Benjamin Gray and Tom Brown who took the best graduation film award.
(scene from “Danielle’s Story” in “The Wrong Trainers – CBBC has the story behind it and links to the animations online)
Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda received a special distinction in the feature category for “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”, Germany’s “The Runt” by Andreas Hykade took the Fipresci Award and France scored with Serge Elissalde’s “The Man on the Moon” and Gregoire Sivan‘s “Premier Voyage”, winning the Sacem and Canal Plus awards respectively. The festival seems to be growing in importance according to the Hollywood Reporter (via Neorama), with major US studios such as Disney and and Pixar appearing to show some of their wares, while among the events were several ‘making of’ sessions covering the new Shrek movie and Persepolis among others.
(scene from Samuel and Frederic Guillaume’s “Max & Co“)
Some 500 films were screened, including 182 which were in competition from some 35 countries; great news for everyone who loves good animation. Hearty congratulations to all who took part and obviously we are slightly biased in wishing special congratulations to our own Brit animators for such a stunning sweep of the board. We’re not to sure about the health of our comics biz these days or our film industry, but that wonderful genre that moves between them both, British animation, seems to be in rude health.
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November 26th, 2007 at 9:59 am
[...] Bristol’s Aardman Animation were named independent production company of the year at the Children’s BAFTAs yesterday, while Tiger Aspect’s Charlie and Lola won the best Pre-School Animation category; the show is based on Lauren Child’s popular (and Kate Greenaway Medal-winning) children’s books and had previously tasted success at the prestigious Annecy awards in the summer. O’Hare Entertainment’s The Secret Show edged out Aardman’s Annecy-winning Shaun the Sheep to bag the main Animation category award and also picked up a gong in the Interactive category. Surprisingly Harry Potter lost out at the ceremony, being beat in the new video game category by Sony’s Buzz Junior Jungle Party and also losing out in the Feature Film category to the all-singing, all-dancing CGI penguin flick Happy Feet and by The Simpsons Movie in the Kid’s Vote, where, as the name suggests, kids get to vote for their own favourite film of the year. Personally I thought the Simpsons Movie will make my Biggest Disappointment of the Year list since I was so looking forward to it only to feel let down by the mediocre nature of it, but each to their own. Print this Story Send to a Friend [...]