AWARDS
Easter Eggs
The Chinese restaurant is empty. Mister Ping is gone. The exotic bird’s cage stands wide open. No one knows what happened. Two friends, Jason and Kevin, see this as a great opportunity to catch the birds and sell them for a great amount of money. But catching the birds ain’t as simple as it seems…
Director : Nicolas Keppens
Nicolas Keppens (Aalst, 1989) graduated in 2012 at KASK / School of Arts Ghent with the short animation film Superstars. After his animation studies at KASK he studied at the film academy of Luca School of Arts in Brussels. Apart from his own projects, Nicolas works as production manager for Studio Hans Op de Beeck, where he is responsible for the production, animation and editing of different projects, e.g. Night Time (Biënnale Venice), Staging Silence (3).
- Jury Comment
- The story with a well-planned scenario is told with pictures with restrained movements and limited spaces of frames. The well-chosen composition of colors used in the film has maintained the beauty as the picture while keeps the power to make the audience aware of the fact that it is an only painted world and confront the film with critical objectivity. The film successfully rises a mundane everyday life that is consisted of small events with no real drama to the level of cinematic illusion with its very sophisticated and elegant direction and visuals.
[VR] Replacements
"Replacements" depicts a Javanese family routinely observing their neighborhood day after day, generation after generation, replacement after replacement. it is a VR story about roots, time and change.
Director : Jonathan Hagard
Jonathan Hagard is a half French Indonesian director, animator and illustrator based in Kyoto, Japan. Between documentary and animated fiction, based on his experiences and researches in sprawling cities such Tokyo and Jakarta, he tells stories through traditional animation and new medias.
- Jury Comment
- The position of the audience remains the same, but the surrounding environment gradually changes and is eventually replaced entirely. The filmmaker has carefully studied the characteristics of each era and depicted everything from buildings to props, subtly showing the changes of the times and their impact on the people. The changes in the background constantly remind us of what the families and neighbors living here have gone through, and what this country has gone through. With a photorealistic touch, the director expresses the unhurried daily life, nostalgia for the past, and the helplessness of being a small individual who cannot compete with the times.
The Fourth Wall
Home and family, relationships, desires, wishes and everything are summarized in a kitchen. The stuttering boy is alone there, playing with his imagination.
Director : Mahboobeh Kalaee
Mahboobeh Kalaee (1992, Iran) holds a BA in Industrial Design from the Tehran College of Fine Arts (2015). An MA Animation Directing at Tehran University of Art (Faculty of Cinema & Theatre) (2020). She is a 2D animator, writer, illustrator, graphic designer, and director of several short and experimental animations.
- Jury Comment
- Its free and richly expressive style enables the film to tell a story with a potentially negative subject without creating a heavy atmosphere, and the fusion of dynamics and the skillful technique is a wonderful attraction of this film. Even the roughness and rawness are very pleasing.
Hide
Two boys are playing hide and seek. One of them finds the perfect hiding spot....and never comes out. Life carries on outside.
Director : Daniel Gray
UK-born director Daniel Gray is an animation director and writer whose talent is internationally recognised. Daniel’s graduation film “t.o.m.” won numerous awards across international film festivals, including Sundance, Ottawa, Annecy, and the British Animation Awards. TEETH followed with even greater critical and public acclaim, screening at over 40 festivals and garnering awards at some of the top events including Annecy and SXSW.
- Jury Comment
- The film proves that animation is the art form that creates a special kind of time and experiences it. The time structure of this film is multilayered, transversal, and nested. It is also interesting in that it makes us think about recognition itself. Even if we think we understand and recognize life with limited space, limited time, and limited audiovisual information, we have no way of knowing how far outside those limits we are, and it made us think about the possibilities of metacognition.
A Bite of Bone
A little girl reflects on her last summer with her father at his funeral. Set on a small island in Japan where the director was born and raised, the film explores the relationship between the death of her father and the bomb storage in the mountain behind the family house.
Director : Honami Yano
Honami Yano was born on a small island in Japan. During her college years spent in Kyoto, she went on an exchange program to the Rhode Island School of Design. Received the master degree at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media. After graduation, she worked for it as a researcher assistant for three years.
- Jury Comment
- This film, with its impressive colors and techniques, carefully but boldly expresses while staying close to the story. It was repeatedly brought up for discussion of the jury final meeting and could be called the eye of the typhoon in this year's international short competition.
Steakhouse
The steak has been marinating for a few days now. The pan is heated. Franc’s stomach is rumbling. But Liza’s co-workers surprise her with a birthday party. Will she be home on time?
Director : Špela Čadež
Špela Čadež is animation director and co-founder of Finta Studio in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her films have received 100+ awards at festivals worldwide and were screened in competition selections such as the Sundance Film Festival, Clermont Ferrand and Annecy. A passionate advocate for the analogue, Čadež has impressed with films in puppet and cut-out animation techniques. In 2018 Špela was invited to become a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- Jury Comment
- Through delicate gestures and gentle drawings, the filmmaker has masterfully portrayed the fear behind the story with mise-en-scène filled with tension. Through the story told in a extreme way, the author has neatly expressed the contradictions that often exist between couples. Dominance and possessiveness, resentment towards the other, self-mutilation, and secret revenge by a woman. The film has powerfully expressed the horror of human nature and the violence that is hidden inside a house.
Orders
April 2004. It's Friday, peak time. Somewhere in America, a phone rings. A voice on the other side of the line speaks: someone has reported a theft.
Director : Aleix Pitarch
After graduating from ESCAC in 2002, Aleix began directing music videos and short fiction. He's also worked as an editor, animator and film composer. Orders is his latest project.
- Jury Comment
- There are many animation films that visualize the invisible world, but this one takes on the paradoxical challenge of "non-visualization," telling the story of the invisible without being visible. In addition, by cutting down the elements of animation to a minimum and subtracting expressions that are far from animation-like, the work makes us imagine many things and understand events more realistically with a sense of tension. In addition to the issue of sexual harassment, the film contains broader social messages and metaphors, such as the nature of people who follow authority and the problem of the responsibilities that arise. The film is an achivement as experimentation while the content of the work itself is ambivalent, with the potential to become trauma pornography, and this is difficult to evaluate. However, I give the director a special mention for his creativity.
The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily
To find his long lost son and food to survive the winter, the great bear king leads his clan down from the mountains and into the world of men. After escaping terrible monsters and defeating an evil duke, the bears and men live together in peace – for a time.
Director : Lorenzo Mattotti
Lorenzo Mattotti is an Italian comics artist and illustrator whose work has been published in numerous magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Le Monde. He won an Eisner Award in 2003 for his graphic novel “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily is his first feature film.
- Jury Comment
- We do not live in one big story, but each of us has an independent story that intersects and resonates with each other. However, when we look back at human history, we end up with one big story like the history of each country. By carefully unraveling these large stories, we can discover the individual threads of the hidden but existing stories. This is how we can understand each other.
Dozens of Norths
North is everywhere solitary. Here is all North. This is a record of the people I met in these Norths. However, my memory is fragmented and does not get the point at all. Now I’m starting to wonder my efforts came to nothing. I’m just getting the occasional recognition of the existence of the world through the dull pain changes shape little by little.
Director : Koji Yamamura
Born in 1964. He graduated from Tokyo Zokei University in 1987. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short, "Mt. Head" (2002) had 6 grand prizes and selected 100 Films for a Century of Animation. "Franz Kafka’ s A Country Doctor" (2007) had 6 grand prizes, and his films were awarded more than 100 prizes. He has been selected as the 2 place at 25 top short animated films directors over the last 25 years in 2021. He was awarded the Kawakita Prize and Education Award for Fine Arts in Japan and received the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2019. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a sub-chairman of the Japan Animation Association and a member of the board of directors of ASIFA, a professor of Tokyo University of the Arts.
- Jury Comment
- Focusing the details accurately with a rhythm that matches perfectly but shifting into a bird's-eye view makes the viewers lose what happened just a moment ago. Many feature-length animations are based on detailed episodes centered around a solid story and these details make a whole story dense. What happened in this film is the opposite: the details seem to be connected somewhere, but it is possible that they don't have any connections. It makes me feel fun, and I would not be the only one. The high-impact visual that changes in a blink of an eye with some uncanny and humorous melody keeps attracting our eyes. The challenge of deviating from the story, which should be an important element of feature films, makes this film innovative.
Butterfly Jam
A young woman describes her father and his relationship to his many pets that he never managed to take care of. The animals consistently die one after the other in a context of a family being torn apart.
Director : Shih-Yen Huang
ShihYen HUANG was born in 1990 in Taiwan.She lives and works in France. With more than ten years of experience and research in Art Video and in oil painting, I focus on the marks of memory in objects and space through drawing and animation.
- Jury Comment
- "There is an expression in animation called ""Metamorphosis"". It is an expression in which one shape changes into another. This method can be a visual delight. Life is also constantly metamorphosing as are our appearance, our relationships with the people around us, the cityscape, and the society we live in. It also gives us a sense of ephemerality. Metamorphosis contains not only joy but also sadness. This work highlights the cruelty of the problems that remain unchanged in a transforming life with this method."
Love is Just a Death Away
A tender story about finding love even amid utter decay.
Director : Bára Anna Stejskalová
Bára Anna Stejskalová studies Animation programme TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. Her graduation film The Fishermen was on BAFTA shortlist. She's a co-creator of HEARDT, project which got official Burning Man Honorarium Grant in 2018.
- Jury Comment
- We were emotionally invested in the main character as they found romance in an intricately made grotesque world.
Czarodzielnica
A lively and dynamic nature invades the house in the middle of the forest. Introducing an atmosphere of anxiety to a quiet evening. Will the family secret see the moonlight?
Director : Klaudia Ptasińska
born 1995. Graduate of stage design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. She participated in films in scenography and costume design, cooperating with the Film School in Łódź and AMA Film Academy in Cracow. She presented her works at group exhibitions in Poland and abroad.
- Jury Comment
- This carefully edited and rotoscoped film leads the viewer to read the relationships of each character along with their past and future although with few facial expressions. The climax of the music is linked to the culmination of the story, successfully allowing the viewer to enjoy the story while listening to the music.
A Stone in the Shoe
A pupil turns up to his new class for the first time. This pupil however is different to the others, he’s a frog in a class of rabbits.
Director : Eric Montchaud
Eric Montchaud studied at La Poudriere animation film school. His first film, "The Smell of Wet Dog" was self-produced. He worked as an animator on projects for TV series, short films, advertisements and music videos. He animated some scenes for the films "The Science of Sleep" and "Mood Indigo" by Michel Gondry. In 2015 he completed his second short film, "Anatole’s Little Saucepan", an adaptation of a children’s book by Isabelle Carrier. The film, produced by JPL Films, won many prizes including the Audience Award at Annecy Festival.
Two Sisters
Rouge and Blanche, two happy twin sisters, live in a plain on the edge of a hostile forest they are afraid to approach. The danger will come from elsewhere.
Director : Anna Budanova
Graduated with a master's degree in graphic arts from the Ural State University of Architecture and Art (animation cinema option) in 2008.
Statues Game
In a Chinese statues game, when a child writes the character, the others can move, and they can't after the child finishing one. The world seems to be static to him at that time. If a child is accidentally trapped in the still world while playing the game, what will he do? We always hope to control time, so that we can enjoy the moment we most want to exist, enjoy the eternal joy, and avoid problems we don't want to face. However, the world cannot be as simple as childhood games. Time moves forward like a river, and never stops for any reason, even one frame. Grasping the present and moving forward is the only way for us to survive.
Director : Hong Xiao
Hong Xiao is a professional illustrator, animator, and Gif maker based in Shanghai. He is working as a designer by day, and making his own short films and illustration books in the spare time. His favorite topic is childhood. He believes that depicting plausible childhood is a way to stimulate the inner strength of adults. That period of time is the foundation of human growth and the most possible stage of life.
- Jury Comment
- A delicate lyricism is achieved by the synergy between the concise artwork and the elaborate narrative. The ending is heartwarming and gives a very positive feeling.
Flowing Home
Flowing Home is the story of two sisters separated after the Vietnam war. Thao, the youngest, is 15. She’ll flee Vietnam by boat to a refugee camp on the island of Pualu Bidong, Malaisia. Sao Maï, the eldest is 17. She will stay in Vietnam with her parents. In her loneliness she lives with the ghosts of the past. An epistolary relationship will feed their lives for over 15 years and will be the story of their journey until their reunion.
Director : Sandra Desmazieres
Born in 1978, Sandra Desmazieres studied at Duperré l’école Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués in Paris and l’École Nationale des Arts décoratifs also in Paris, where she discovered animation films. Her school movie WITHOUT HEAD NOR TAIL (Sans queue ni tête) won the Gold Cartoon in 2003. She also directed LE THÉ DE L’OUBLI in 2008 and BAO in 2011, produced by Les Films de l’Arlequin. Sandra also works as an illustrator for the youth.
- Jury Comment
- Although the story is set in a specific time and place in actual history, its message can be felt universally. How the ghosts are portrayed in the story gives the impression as if they are love or a curse.
Longing to Return
This animation project/voyage/flight collects the voices and virtual drawings of second-grade children from a public school in Bogotá, Colombia. Children return symbolically to their school in the form of animated beings in the midst of a pandemic. The school which is now empty and desolate due to the pandemic comes alive for one night. The drawings run through the school and meet each other, share and play until dawn, when the sunlight vanishes its presence.
Director : Angel David Hurtado Orozco
Artist, animator, and filmmaker passionate about collective creation, teaching and research, graduated from the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogotá. During his career he worked in projects that problematize and analyze the image within the Latin American context, his artistic pursuit is framed around the political and transforming powers of art. His work has been exhibited in numerous national and international festivals around the world.
- Jury Comment
- The children's unbridled imagination which never falters even in the midst of difficult circumstances strike your heart. At the same time, it's sad to think about what the children had lost.
Round Trip
”Kaibun” are palidromes in which words sound the same when read backwards and forwards. Sometimes the meaning changes, and sometimes not. I brought this playful and poetic world to life.
Director : Abe Yuka
Born in Sapporo, Japan in 1997. Graduated in 2020 from Sapporo Otani University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Fine Art in the Field of Media Expression, majoring in photography and images. As of 2021, studying in the Department of Animation at Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media.
Our Little Pond
I’m the only one who can't live without an oxygen tank in the underwater world. No matter how suffocated I feel, I preserve peace and harmony by pretending the selfish girl and my friends with complicated family backgrounds don’t bother me.
Director : Namiko Ishidate
Born in Tokyo in 1990 and raised in Yokohama. After graduating from Tama Art University, Department of Graphic Design in 2013, worked as a professional animator for 5 years. Master's degree candidate in the Department of Animation, Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media, expected graduation in March 2021.
Ancient Battle Shell Genocider…Video recording of the TV broadcast of episode 22
In April 2019, a partial recording was miraculously found and the OP and ED were released for the fantastic TV anime ”Ancient Battle Shell Genocider” from the late 80s, but a subsequent search found a new recording with the complete OP, ED, next preview and end card, and two TV game commercials. This is an independent animation created with the above settings.
Director : Kousuke Hosokawa
Born in 1987. After graduating from the Art Course of the Kanagawa Prefectural Yaiei Higashi High School, he went on to graduate from the Animation Department of the Tokyo Polytechnic University Faculty of Arts. After working at an animation subcontracting company for about a month, he started working at a post office and started making his own animation with the intention of entering the video industry, but it took him 10 years to make this work, 10 times longer than expected.
One day in 2020, 2021
One day in 2020
One day in 2021
Director : Shohei Ohmae
Animation Filmmaker / Illustrator
https://www.ohmaeart.com/
A Bite of Bone
A little girl reflects on her last summer with her father at his funeral. Set on a small island in Japan where the director was born and raised, the film explores the relationship between the death of her father and the bomb storage in the mountain behind the family house.
Director : Honami Yano
Honami Yano was born on a small island in Japan. During her college years spent in Kyoto, she went on an exchange program to the Rhode Island School of Design. Received the master degree at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media. After graduation, she worked for it as a researcher assistant for three years.
Estrange
On the eve of her wedding, Miyo’s best friend, whom she had invited to the party, cuts her off. Realizing that friendships have a shelf life, Miyo thinks back to the days when they were young and joyful.
Director : Kazuki Sekiguchi
Born in Tokyo, Japan, 1991. Graduated from Tama Art University and Tokyo University of the Arts. Started working as a freelance animation filmmaker from 2018. Making Animations about animal characters with soft drawn lines and individual humor.
CHERRY AND VIRGIN
Ryo Honda, a commercial erotic manga artist, and Ami Enomoto, a doujin artist who draws BL illustrations. They are both inexperienced romantics around 30s and meet on a matching app: ...... Ryo uses a monochrome manga touch and Ami uses a color illustration touch. The character designs are based on the designs of each character in this romantic comedy film, which is told through unusual animated images. (For all ages)
Director : Masanao Kawajiri
