Oct 22, 2024

Flow” and ‘Wander To Wonder’ win top awards at the Animation Film Festival

“Flow,” a low-budget, thrilling survival film by Latvian director Gints Zilvarodis, has won the top award for best feature film at the seventh edition of the L.A.-based animation film festival Animation is Film (AIF), organized by GKIDS, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, and Variety. (AIF), won the top award for best feature film at the seventh edition of the festival. [After premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and winning more awards than any other film at this year's Annecy International Animated Film Festival, “Flow” is emerging as a major contender this awards season. Last month it won the Grand Prix in Ottawa, and earlier this month it was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the European Film Awards. The film will open in Los Angeles and New York on November 22 through Sideshow and Janus Films, followed by a U.S. release on December 6.

The jury, consisting of Kambole Campbell, Peter Debruge, Carolyn Giardina, Karen Ryan, and Drew Taylor, stated the following reasons for selecting “Flow” as the winning film:

Gints Zilvarodis is Flow is a serious look at how human behavior affects the environment and how it affects animals, and it is an animated film that can only seriously consider how human behavior affects the environment and how it affects animals. seriously considers the impact of human actions on the environment and how this affects the animals, and centers their perspectives in a way that only animation can.

Nina Ganz's stop-motion short “Wonder to Wonder,” a co-production between the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Animation Is Film. This dark comedy film follows the lives of three miniature actors in a children's television series. With their slowly decaying costumes and hunger, they continue to create increasingly bizarre episodes for their fans.

Wonder to Wonder premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2023 and has since received numerous honors, including Grand Prix awards at SXSW, Valladolid, Cardiff, and Anima Brussels.

The short film's jury, consisting of Tom Caulfield, Nick West, and Ramin Zahed, said of the film: “Nina Ganz's profound meditation on grief captivated the jury with its unique visual style and sense of hope.

The Audience Award was a tie between Adam Elliott's stop-motion feature “Snail Memory,” which just won the top prize at the BFI London Film Festival, and Naoko Yamada's latest feature “The Colors Within.”

Grand Jury Prize

Special Jury Prize

Audience Award (tie)

Short Length Competition Grand Jury Prize

Short Length Competition Special Jury Prize