New York International Children’s Film Festival Announces Its 2022 Festival Winners
Skwigly
The OscarⓇ-qualifying New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) announced its 2022 festival winners earlier today. Audience Awards were given in the following age voting categories: ages 3+, ages 6+, ages 8+, ages 10+, ages 12+, and ages 18+ (Grown Ups Awards). An Audience Award was also presented for episodic program. Other accolades included: Jury Award, live action short; Jury Award, animated short; Grand Prize, short; and Grand Prize, feature.
This year’s Festival jury included Uma Thurman, Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Kyle MacLahlan, among others. The OscarⓇ-qualifying Jury Award, live action short went to Burros by Jefferson Stein, and the Jury Award, animated short to The Ocean Duck from director Hudda Razzak. “This year’s Festival presented such a gorgeous, strong selection,” noted OscarⓇ-nominated juror Nora Twomey of the 2022 Festival program.
The award announcement concluded with Grand Prize Awards. The Grand Prize in the short film category was awarded to She Dreams At Sunrise from director Camrus Johnson. Johnson’s previous short, Grab My Hand: A Letter to my Dad, won the NYICFF 2020 Jury Award for animated short. The Grand Prize for feature film went to China’s To The Bright Side by Xiya Lan (NYICFF 2017’s You Look Scary), Nianze Li, Yi Zhao, Kun Yu, Gaoxiang Liu, Maoning Liu, and Chen Chen, a first-of-its-kind collection of animated stories based on Chinese picture books.
NYICFF 2022 Audience Award Winners
- Ages 3+ — Franzy’s Soup Kitchen (Shorts for Tots), France, Georgia; Ana Chubinidze
- Ages 6+ — Cupids (Short Films One, Celebrating Black Stories), United States; Zoey Martinson
- Ages 8+ — Mum is Pouring Rain (Short Films Two), France; Hugo de Faucompret
- Ages 10+ — The Fall (Heebie Jeebies Shorts), Canada; Desirae Witte
- Ages 12+ — It Was Only a Rock That Looked Like Someone (Short Films Three), Mexico; Matisse Gonzalez
- Episodic Program — Moominvalley (feature program), Finland, United Kingdom; Nigel Davies, Darren Robbie, and Jay Grace for Gutsy Animations
- Grown Ups Award, short — Generation Impact: The Coder (Girls’ POV: Science on ScreenⓇ, Celebrating Black Stories) United States; Samantha Knowles
- Grown Ups Award, feature — Charlotte, Belgium, Canada, France; Tahir Rana and Éric Warin
“We’re so grateful to our beloved audiences and extraordinary jury for rightfully acknowledging the incredible filmmaking talent in NYICFF 2022’s slate,” said Programming Director Maria-Christina Villaseñor. Celebrating its 25th Anniversary season as North America’s largest and most prestigious film festival for young audiences, and marking its return to the cinema and in-person events, the festival ran over three weekends starting on March 4th, at SVA Theatre. A virtual festival program ran from March 16 through April 6. “It was so meaningful to celebrate cinema as a communal, shared experience between generations, in the theater and online,” said Villaseñor. “And a testament to NYICFF’s staying power and the power of film for harnessing great ideas, expanding representation, and celebrating meaning and joy, both on screen and off.”
From thousands of entries submitted from around the globe, each program was carefully curated for NYICFF’s dedicated audience of over 28,000 children, families, educators, filmmakers, cinephiles, and industry professionals.
To learn more about NYICFF, visit: www.nyicff.org or follow NYICFF on its official channels:
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