06/03/2006

At last night’s awards ceremony for the Anima 2006: Cartoon and Animated Film Festival, the Anima 2006 Best Film went to the Hungarian film The District by Aron Gauder (as well as the prize from Channel BeTV, which will broadcast the film) with Best Animated Short Film going to Gaëlle Denis of the UK for City Paradise.

With the premieres of 7 features and 133 shorts, Anima celebrated animation from all around the world, but nine of the 11 prizes awarded in the international competition went to European films, with the French taking the lion’s share: Versus by François Caffiaux, Romain Noël and Thomas Salas (Best Short Student Film) and L'Oiseau Do by Henri Heidsieck (Best Short Children’s Film) seduced audiences while Guillaume Delauna’s Nocturne picked up in the Best Short Student Film.

The festival closed last night with Renaissance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aton Soumache
interview: Christian Volckman
film profile], an original and impressive debut feature by French filmmaker Christian Volckman (to whom Cineuropa will soon dedicate a Focus).

As for Belgian films, the Audience Award went to Pascal Adant’s Slow Motion while Hot Dog by Joke Van Der Steen and Valère Lommel received the Grand Prix from the French-speaking community. And our colleagues at Cinergie gave their prize to Le Môme fait mouche by Alain Sace for his sensitivity towards "education and the transmission of knowledge", also emphasising that "there can be no art without stories just as there can be no stories without art."

(Translated from French)