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Winners Announced for HIROSHIMA 2020 International Animation Festival

// Festival News

Skwigly



The award winners for the 18th International Animation Festival – HIROSHIMA 2020 have been announced.

In May, the International Selection Committee took place via an online conference system, and 59 works were selected for the official competition program out of 2,339 entries (from 84 countries and regions). The official competition was held by the International Jury using online the conference system during 20 – 24th August. As a result, 18 award-winning works were decided.

Grand Prize: Daughter / Dcera

A sensational animation experience, never seen before, caused by the signs of disquieting and the atmosphere which is sometimes made by intensive wild camerawork, as well as each gesture of puppets which is even quite simple. However, what is drawn is obviously a human drama, which shows the communication between a daughter and a father, those two who are gradually growing apart even though they care each other. All Jury members agreed that “Daughter” is the best film in competition, for its very pureness and deepness at the same time.

Hiroshima Prize: Am I a Wolf? / Gorgam-o-Gale Mibaram

This animation blurs our borders between reality, theatrical performances and cinema through outstanding beautiful images and harmonious sounds. An adaptation of the fairytale “The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats”, full of suspense.

Debut Prize: Beetle in the Anthill

As a first film, the jury appreciated this particularly well written and designed story as a metaphor about freedom. The title is adapted from a famous science fiction novel of the 1980’s, which here turned into a poetical mood when a lonely elephant, released from a zoo, makes friend with homeless people in a city of nowhere.

Renzo Kinoshita Prize: Warm star / Teplaya zvezda

What a lovely film! Children’s love changes the cold star into a warm star. I’m an adult and I think the world is cold. But on the other side, as a member of a secret religion who believes in love, only love can change the world. This film contains warm faith in children’s pure love.

Special International Jury Prize: Per tutta la vita

With richly textured drawings, unpredictable metamorphoses and unique sounds spectator is taken on an enigmatic journey down the rabbit hole.

Special International Jury Prize: School of Development / Школа развития

A special nomination to this colorful and dynamical animated film, as an ironical day in a modern life of a six years old girl and her friends, scheduled by a clock.

Special International Jury Prize: The Rain / Deszcz

This metaphorical animation is simple and humorous. Each superhero would hate this situation. It is impressive that a cold artwork and scene is directing in a static and dynamic drive.

Special International Jury Prize: The Physics of Sorrow

This film based on the novel of the same title by Bulgarian writer, Georgi Gospodinov, is a masterpiece depicting the protagonist’s agony who lived before the World War II and through the Cold War. This work is in high esteem as the visual effect where the pieces of personalized memory drawn by reminiscence format intersect in multi-layers and the picturesque expression which is the characteristic of the director have become a powerful effect, as well as the fusion with the director’s thought.

Special International Jury Prize: Orgiastic Hyper-Plastic

A film provides light and adorable impression as in a commercial work. However, as we go through the dance of beautifully designed waste materials, the film makes us feel that the very relationship between human beings and plastic is like a kind of flirtatious love affair. We feel a warning to us human beings who ignore the contemporary situation of our mother earth, caused by the ‘subject’ that was abandoned by ourselves. The social viewpoint of this film was highly evaluated.

Special International Jury Prize: Crab / Kharchang

“Crab” is a heartbreaking cruel story. It reveals bestiality of human beings. With her impressive rotoscoped drawings and dramatic sounds director holds a mirror up to us.

Special International Jury Prize: Traces

The jury gave a special nomination to this fairy tale on prehistory, to congratulate this beautiful and original work, created under camera on glass and with sand.

Special Prize: Kapaemahu

This film is about a myth of four legendary Mahu who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii few centuries ago. Among them, the leader’s name is Kapaemahu. It is an amazing film that describes mysterious light and secret healing power.

Special Prize: How Much Does the Cloud Weigh?

The jury nominated this unusual story about a scientist who is so much concerned with observing the clouds that he finally escaped step by step from his rational world.

Special Prize: NEST

The jury nominated this excellent work as a combination of music and design, showing the aesthetic dynamics of these Paradise’s birds.

Special Prize: Mother didn’t know / Mor visste Ingenting

A grand barrel symbolizing the mind of a girl, the protagonist. The continuation of extremely sensitive happenings inside the darkness of her mind kept our eyes closely to this film. The attractiveness of this work is the various expressions of stop-motion, used in a crossover manner, made this film not just a mere puppet film, and reminded us of the marvelous power of animation.

Special Prize: Divinity

A challenging film, with remarkably high respect to puppet animation, and an enthusiasm toward the reconstruction through using computer were felt strongly from the entire image. The style of direction like a classic horror movie, the texture of puppet which seems to be common at a glance, underlining the good quality of its artistic settings.

Special Prize: No body

With wonderful, under camera painted charcoal drawings director confronts us through personal immigration experiences. By opposing images of bodies with city landscapes, she depicts disconnection and loneliness. With support of coherent sounds, excitement and frustration grow into hope.

Special Prize: Better

Is the jungle where main character explores a real forest or is it her inner world? This film is about the connection between the outer world and the inner side of the character, by presenting a mixture of various expressions. Moreover, the use of short live-action films becomes effective.

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