– Other winners include Conor Kehelly’s A Pint of Bitter, Jocelyn Charles’s God is Shy, Sam Kuwa’s So He Grabbed the Knife and Ana Horvat’s School Show
Natalia Mirzoyan with her Grand Prix award for Winter in March (© Marina Buhin)
The 36th edition of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb (8–13 June) wrapped on Saturday night with the Armenian-Estonian film Winter in March by director Natalia Mirzoyan winning the Grand Prix for “making imaginative use of its hand-crafted technique” and “balancing a difficult documentary with humour and wit”, as the jury put it. The GoCritic! review of the film can be found here, and an interview with Mirzoyan here. The Grand Prix in the Grand Competition Feature Film section was awarded to the Canadian-French film Death Does Not Exist by Félix Dufour-Laperrière.
The Grand Competition Short Film Jury, consisting of Jan Pinkava, Nina Gantz, Sawako Kabuki, Maarten van Gageldonk and Paola Orlić also presented the Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement to Conor Kehelly for the independently produced Irish film A Pint of Bitter. The Zlatko Grgić Award for Best First Film Made Outside an Educational Institution went to the French film God is Shy by Jocelyn Charles.
Each of the jury members gave out a special mention, listed below, while the Grand Competition Feature Film Jury, composed of Pierre Yves Drapeau, Mariam Kandelaki and Tina Smrekar gave a special mention to the Brazilian film Son of a Bitch by Erica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Sávi Leite and Tania Anaya.
The combined jury of the Student Film Competition and the Croatian Film Competition, comprising Krste Gospodinovski, Marta Magnuska and Annegret Richter, opted to give out the Dušan Vukotić Award for Best Student Film to Sam Kuwa for So He Grabbed the Knife, made at the Tokyo University of the Arts. The two special mentions went to Time Flies by Tommaso Zerbi and Things That I Was Gathering by Ekaterina Zhuzhleva. Ana Horvat‘s School Show was crowned in the Croatian Film Competition, while a special mention went to Luka Vucić for Heartwreck.
The winner of the Films for Children and Youth Competition was chosen by the children’s jury, who awarded the main prize to the Japanese film On the Other Side by Mingyu Wang and gave a special mention to the South Korean film Battery Grandma by Seungbae Jeon.
The Mr. M Audience Award for short films went to Please by Anna Mantzaris), while the equivalent prize for a feature went to Samurai Ballerina – L’étoile de Paris en fleur by Goro Taniguchi.
This year, Animafest Zagreb added a new prize, the Award for Best Video Game Art Direction, which was decided on by the jury consisting of Admir Elezović, Aleksandar Gavrilović and Sara Jurić and went to Michael Frei for the Swiss game Time Flies by the Playables studio.
The full list of Animafest Zagreb award winners is:
Grand Competition Short Film
Grand Prix
Winter in March – Natalia Mirzoyan (Estonia/Armenia)
Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement
A Pint of Bitter – Conor Kehelly (Ireland)
Zlatko Grgić Award
God is Shy – Jocelyn Charles (France)
Jan Pinkava’s Special Mention
Autokar – Sylwija Szkiladz (France/Belgium)
Nina Gantz‘s Special Mention
Ivar – Markus Tangre (Norway)
Sawako Kabuki’s Special Mention
Water Girl – Sandra Desmazières (France/Netherlands/Portugal)
Maarten van Gageldonk’s Special Mention
A Taste of Beer – Xie Li (China)
Paola Orlić’s Special Mention
Glasses – Yumi Joung (South Korea)
Mr. M Audience Award
Please – Anna Mantzaris (Sweden/France/Czech Republic/Norway/Finland)
Grand Competition Feature Film
Grand Prix
Death Does Not Exist – Félix Dufour-Laperrière (Canada/France)
Special Mention
Son of a Bitch – Erica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Sávi Leite, Tania Anaya (Brazil)
Mr. M Audience Award
Samurai Ballerina – L’étoile de Paris en fleur – Goro Taniguchi (Japan)
Student Film Competition
Dušan Vukotić Award for Best Student Film
So He Grabbed the Knife – Sam Kuwa (Japan, short)
Special Mention
Time Flies – Tommaso Zerbi (Portugal/Belgium/Finland/Italy)
Things That I Was Gathering – Ekaterina Zhuzhleva (Finland/Belgium/Portugal)
Croatian Film Competition
Best Film
School Show – Ana Horvat (Croatia)
Special Mention
Heartwreck – Luka Vucić (Croatia)
Films for Children and Youth Competition
Best Film
On the Other Side… – Mingyu Wang (Japan)
Special Mention
Battery Grandma – Seungbae Jeon (South Korea)
Special Recognition (Audience Award)
The Scarlet Tamagotchi – Francisco Visceral Rivera (Chile, short)
Best Video Game Art Direction
Time Flies – Michael Frei (Switzerland)
