Left to right: Ron Diamond, Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Bill Plympton, Lea Zagury and Bill Kroyer at Stuttgart `98. Photo © Animation World Network.

Some 60 films in competition screened in six programs, which were repeated a second time for the convenience of the audience. Aside from the excellent projection -- a giant screen with clear focus in all the various formats -- the competition programs seemed unique to me, a veteran of dozens of festivals, in that obviously someone had looked at all the films carefully and put them together sensitively into programs of a certain common style, mood, and subject-matter, which made for smooth viewing and a heightened, comparative critical discrimination. The program booklet also listed filmographies for most of the filmmakers, so one could see the difference between someone like Daniel Szczechura who has made some 25 films since 1960, and others who just began a few years ago, or who have made only a few films. The Jury consisted of Russian Garri Bardin, Dutch (Canadian) Paul Driessen, German Thomas Meyer-Hermann, French Florence Miaihle, and English Barry Purves. The choices could not have been easy, because there were many fine and diverse films among those selected for competition. Since Stuttgart is held every-other year, films made in late 1996 were eligible for competition, which meant that a number of the films had been seen and won prizes at other festivals, an increasing problem with the proliferation of festivals... The unfortunate results, I suspect, is that those "deja vu" films really have a harder chance at the prizes, even if they are obviously the best

Craig Welch's How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels. Image courtesy of the national Film Board of Canada.

The Prize Winners:
The grand prize of $7,500 (15,000 DM ) went to How Wings Are Attached To The Backs Of Angels by Craig Welch, National Film Board of Canada -- a chilling surrealist guignol in the tradition of Jan Lenica, finely detailed cel animation, excellent Normand Roger sound.

Jury comment: "For its brilliant draughstmanship and the density of the icy, nightmarish atmosphere it creates."

State Capital Stuttgart Award: The equivalent of U.S. $7,500 (15,000 DM) went to Pink Doll by Valentin Olschwang of Swerdlowsk Film Studios in Russia -- tale, drawn on paper almost in a children's style, of a little girl whose mother has a lover and so, gives her a doll as a present to distract her, which doesn't quite work...
Jury comment: "For its sensitive depiction of childhood anguishes."

International ProSieben Award for Animated Film (to promote the acceptance of animation as an art form): $10,000 (20,000 DM) to The Great Migration by Yuri Cherenkov, produced by Folimage in France -- a charming story of migrating birds who get lost in a storm. Jury comment: "For a film flawless in every element."

Outstanding Children's Film: $2,500 (5,000 DM) to Charlie's Christmas by Jacques-Remy Girerd of Folimage -- very much in modern children's book illustration style, and nearly half-an-hour long. Jury comment: "This complex story is full of humor, humanity and touching observations."