The Annecy Plus band regulars, Rolf Bachler on percussion and Nik Phelps on saxophone, were joined by Annecy Selection Committee member Alexei Alexeev on guitar to entertain the audience before and after the show and during intermissions with their melodic tunes.

After all of the audience ballots were counted the Bronze Bone was given to Divers by Paris Mavroudas for an experimental animation that was inspired by Busby Berkeley, mass gymnastics and experimental cinema of the '20s and '30s. The Silver Bone went to Alexi Budowsky for his 3 minute 50 second Flash film Royal Nightmare, the story of an evil King whose life is turned into a nightmare by a pilgrim.

The audience voted the very prestigious Golden Bone Award to Signe Baumane for Teat Beat of Sex: Job, which really shouldn't need any explanation. Annecy Plus has now grown to a point where we have a staff, so thanks go to Signe Baueman and Pat Smith who helped program, Kerri Allegretta our program designer, Jonas Raeber, who provided the projection and ED Distribution,who helped sponsor Annecy Plus.

Far too soon it was time to get ready for the closing ceremony. With two good friends, Adam Eliott and Alexei Alexeev, on juries (Adam on the Short Film Competition jury and Alexei on the Short Film Selection Committee) I was very curious to see who the winners would be. Each year Serge Bromberg, who emcees the closing night festivities along with Tiziana Loschi, CITIA managing director, arrives on stage in a novel and outrageous way. This year, to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of man landing on the moon, Serge arrived on stage in a "lunar golf cart" dressed in a space suit. Tiziana wore a wonderful space age dress with a hair style to match.

It was no surprise to me when Mary and Max and Coraline were announced as co-winners of the Feature Film Crystal nor that Brendan and the Secret of the Kells won the Audience Award. I was also delighted that PES was voted the Short Film Audience Award for his very cleaver Western Spaghetti and that Runaway by Canadian animator Cordell Barker garnered a Special Jury Award. Cordell, known for his delightful film The Cat Came Back, is as charming as his films.

I was very pleased with all of the awards until we got to the Annecy Grand Prix Crystal, and Slaves by Hanna Heilborn and David Aronowitsch was named the winner. The film is based on a 2003 interview with two children aged 9 and 15 who were taken by the government sponsored militia in Sudan and used as slaves. Undeniably, this is an important issue that deserves all the attention that it can get. Slaves certainly was a perfect choice for the UNICEF Award, which it received at the festival, but it was definitely not the best animated film at Annecy this year.