‘Flee’ Scoops MAF’s First Best Feature Film Gong & ‘Hey Duggee’ Wins Industry Excellence Award For Scriptwriting | Full Winners Revealed
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MAF 2021 Winners: Flee (Best Feature Film) and Save Ralph (Best Commissioned Film)
During a ceremony on Thursday 25th November hosted by Festival Director Steve Henderson, Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) unveiled the winners of the 2021 Industry Excellence Awards and Film Awards. Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary Flee, exec produced by Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, has won the Festival’s first ever Best Feature Film award following unanimous decision from the jury who said of the film: “once you’ve seen Flee there’s no arguing with the quality of work on display in it’s craft, it’s deeply emotive story, and it’s incredible art design.”
The Industry Excellence Awards, which recognise individuals working in industry in the fields of scriptwriting, storyboarding, character design and character animation have been judged by Mark Oswin, Kenneth Anderson, Althea Aseoche and Kevin Spruce.
This year’s Film Awards, which is the Festival’s international film competition, have categories of Best Feature Film (for the first time), Best Short Film, Best Student Film, Best Commissioned Film and special mentions of films that highly impressed the judges this year. You can read more about each jury HERE.
Earlier this year, MAF introduced the feature film category aiming to showcase the skills of international filmmaking talent across four dedicated titles. This year, short films for children were also eligible for an award (Supported by BBC Children’s), highlighting some of the best family friendly short films from across the globe.
MAF presented the coveted Manchester Animation Festival trophies and Industry Excellence Awards, which were crafted by master model makers Mackinnon and Saunders, who have brought some of the world’s best known animated characters to life – from Bob the Builder, Postman Pat and Fifi and the Flowertots, to Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox.
Festival Director Steve Henderson said: “We were delighted to return our Festival competition to cinemas, bigger and better than before with the inclusion of our Feature Film Competition that showcases the breadth of amazing animated features made internationally and our Shorts Films for Children category that presents all ages with a warm and welcoming break from the sometimes stale diet of online kids content. We’re happy to add these to our existing Short, Student, Commissioned and Audience Awards. It was a thrill seeing audiences once again bask in the glow of the big screen as they sampled the very best that the world of animation has to offer”
“We were also excited to be able to showcase some incredible talent as part of our Industry Excellence Award, which once more prove that our animation industry is producing incredible talent working on amazing projects”
THE 2021 INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS
Scriptwriting:
- WINNER: Sophie Dutton for Hey Duggee : The Pet Badge
- Alan Robinson & Alex Collier for School of Roars
- Alex Collier for It’s Pony – Locked Out
- Ciaran Murtagh & Andrew Barnett Jones for The Rubbish World of Dave Spud
Storyboarding:
- WINNER: Graeme Young for It’s Pony
- Arly Jones for Absolute Love
- Jonathan Mortimer for New Signs for Animation
- Justin Quinlan for Lisey’s Story – Main Title Sequence
Character Design:
- WINNER: Daniel Amar for Sunrise
- Greg McLeod for Circle Square
- Mark Pyper for The Retro Squad
- George Crosbie for Milo
Character Animation:
- WINNER: Phillip Ward for Obki
- Ben Keohane for Milo
- Aman Gupta for BirdBox
- Sue Guy for Squib: When All of This is Over
MANCHESTER ANIMATION FILM AWARD WINNERS
Quotes are from each collective jury, not from individuals.
Best Feature Film
Winner: Flee
Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Jury Statement:
“This was a unanimous decision for the jury, once you’ve seen Flee there’s no arguing with the quality of work on display in it’s craft, it’s deeply emotive story, and it’s incredible art design.
It’s a story that we’ve heard before in documentary and feature, but told so personally and so intimately, with a level of craft that is both masterful in itself whilst also serving the story, it’s rare to see story and animation working so harmoniously and for that reason it is our clear winner.”
Special Mention : My Favorite War
Director: Ilze Burkovska- Jacobsen
“We found My Favorite War to be another incredibly personal story from an under-represented part of the world, depicting experiences that none of us had seen before on film, in an accessible, entertaining way. For that reason we felt it deserved a special mention.”
Best Short Film
Winner: Navozande, The Musician
Director: Reza Riahi
Jury Statement:
“Navozande, the Musician is an exquisitely captivating film. We were entranced by its handcrafted visuals and hypnotic-like score. This beautiful and heartbreaking tale feels timeless, both aesthetically and in its message of the enduring nature of love”
Special Mentions: Affairs of The Art (Joanna Quinn) + All Those Sensations in My Belly (Marko Djeska)
“A special mention goes to Affairs of The Art by Joanna Quinn for its brilliantly entertaining portrait of obsession, artistic perseverance and stuffed beetles. Another special mention goes to All Those Sensations in My Belly by Marko Dješka for its vivid and highly expressive depiction of someone’s journey to find love and the space to be themselves.”
Best Student Film
Winner: BusLine35A
Director: Elena Felici
Jury Statement:
“Visually and narratively rooted in the mundanity of everyday life, BusLine35A ponders the question “what happens when we see something terrible happening, and fail to act?” Ratcheting up a creeping sense of dread with a spectacular deftness of touch, Felici has created an unassuming but truly unforgettable and effective piece of work.”
Special Mention: My Grandmother Is an Egg (Wu-Ching Chang)
Best Commissioned Film
Winner: Save Ralph
Director: Spencer Susser
Jury statement:
“The film touched the jury in many different ways. Aside from the fact that it is an artistically perfect animated film, it tackles a non-human subject of animal testing in a sensitive, humane and profound way. And this is rare in animation films. The way the main character, Ralph the rabbit, unfolds his life as an animal, who works every day as a “tester” for cosmetic productsin the film is the ideal way of depicting the magnitude of the problem and conveying the message against animal testing.”
Special Mention: What Really Happened During the Attica Prison Rebellion (Tomás Pichardo Espaillat)
“The Jury would like to give a special mention to the film What really happened during the Attica Prison Rebellion for highlighting a significant and universal story of claiming human rights with an interesting animation technique and powerful narrative pace.”
Best Children’s Film – Sponsored by BBC Children’s
Winner: Blue Curry
Creators: Magali Dunyach, Chien-Ju Hung, Jimin Jung, Vajra Pancharia, Léa Pietrzyk
This award was decided by Into Film’s Youth Advisory Council.
Audience Award
Winner: Night of the Living Dread
Director: Ida Melum
This award was decided by the MAF audience members
MAFter Dark Audience Award
Winner: Tales from The Multiverse
Creators: Magnus Møller, Mette Tange & Peter Smith
This award was decided by the audience who attended the MAFter Dark event.