Three Public Prizes were awarded by viewers of the regional television network (SÜDWEST 3), which broadcast a selection of films over a three-day period and tallied viewer response:

$7,500 (15,000 DM) First Prize: Death And The Mother by Ruth Lingford of the British company Ownbrand Animation Ltd. -- a 2-D computer graphic which looked much like Masereel wood-cuts, telling the tale of a mother who pursues Death when he takes her child.

$5,000 (10,000 DM) Second Prize: The Devil Went Down To Georgia by Mike Johnson, listed as a puppet film (though PDI got a credit) - charming visualization of the Charlie Daniels country music classic.

$2,500 (5,000 DM) Third Prize: Wheel of Life by the British artist Vera Neubauer -- a very demanding 16-minute mixture of live-action and object animation on biblical and mythological motifs, with feminist and ecological overtones.

International Mercedes-Benz Sponsorship Prize for Animated Film $20,000 (40,000 DM) scholarship-grant to Un Jour (One Day ) by Marie Paccou of the French company 2001 -- a sharp and moving 2-D computer animation, in a simple black-and-white graphic style again reminiscent of wood-cuts, depicting a woman's reminiscence about her husbands or lovers. This prize includes the realization of an independent production in conjunction with a one-year scholarship at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
Jury comment: "For a film that dealt with a bizarre idea in a matter-of-fact way. We look forward to the next film."

Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg Award for the most innovative film: $3,000 (6,000 DM) to Frühling (Spring ) by Silke Parzich from the Film Academy of Baden-Wurttemberg -- an object animation synchronized to Vivaldi's music, in which chairs, a table and forks cavort.
Jury comment: "Surprising images choreographed to its soundtrack make a unique film."

Stiftung Landesgirokasse Award for the best student film: $2,500 (5,000 DM) to Willy, The Voice Of Europe by Marion Thibau from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Gent, Belgium.
Jury comment: "Even after several viewings by the jury, the film had lost none of its intelligent lightness. [The film] convinced the jury on the strength of its charming protagonist, its delicate irony and contemporary subject matter."

$1,500 for the funniest film to Bill Plympton's Sex And Violence.
Jury comment: "The joke about the key was more than enough to win this award."

My Analysis...
Most of these prize-winning films were very good, but I would have given some of the prizes to other films. Alexander Petrov's The Mermaid is an astonishingly beautiful tour-de-force of painting skill, and lovely in its romanticism. Though, it is two years old and has been seen at other festivals before I would have given it a prize nonetheless. Similarly, Hans Nassenstein's haunting evocation of war and its aftermath Fugue, with its surreal settings for puppet animation seems to me a great film, even if two years old. Solveig von Kleist's The Story Of My Soul also explored adult emotions with a striking graphic style and definitely deserved recognition with astonishing touches, like the birds settling on the telephone wires to form musical notes. In addition, Richard Reeves' seven-minute Linear Dreams, with both abstract images and music drawn directly on the film, was obviously in the great Canadian tradition of Norman McLaren. However, this independent, west-coast production had a vitality and beauty all its own, quite unlike McLaren, Sistiaga or other practitioners in the field, and deserved some recognition.