From the more than 260 films presented both in competition and in panorama at the 21st Annecy Festival held in the Savoy over the course of six sunny days in May, many audience members awarded their highest marks to the famous duo from Bristol, Wallace and Gromit. Their papa, Nick Park, was very busy with the preparation of his first feature-length animation. Therefore, he could only get free in time to arrive for the Awards ceremony, where he received the Public Prize, bestowed on the most famous window cleaners in the kingdom (A Close Shave).

This award was certainly not a surprise as our two comrades have already won Oscars, and been spangled with medals like superstars. But it was particularly symbolic as a tribute to the quantity and quality of puppet and clay animation that was shown, and to the blossoming of English production. Great Britain received six awards in all, including the prize for best short television series (Driving Test by Candy Guard), best television special (Famous Fred by Joanna Quinn), best advertising film (Martell: Legend by Pat Gavin), and of course, for the school presenting the best selection of student films (The Royal College of Art, London). That is almost a third of the prizes!

Lily and the Wolf by Florence Henrard won the prize for the best graduation film.

The distinction of a number of art college films bodes well for the future, with particularly fine promise from the Belgians. Lily and the Wolf by Florence Henrard (La Cambre Studio) won the prize for the Best Graduation Film. It merits, in addition to a prize for freshness, a gold medal for humor. The first version of a mermaid coming out of a wave, Florence Henrard's Out of Bath received a mention for its humor and narrative qualities at Annecy 1995.

The quality of the first time films were also remarkable. Starting with the Grand Prize, The Old Woman and the Pigeons, a comedy ironically described as "nostalgic and cruel," by the Frenchman Sylvain Chomet, who trained in the London animation studios. He evokes very well a certain Parisian atmosphere, delightfully old-fashioned, in accord with the backgrounds of Nicolas de Crécy (a longtime collaborator). The only intelligible words are bits of conversation between American tourists mixed into a very elaborate soundtrack. This counterpoint, besides being quite funny, is a passport to better international distribution. Another first film made in France, Come See, Dear!, is a quick sketch by Carole Fouquet that makes fun of an intimate phone conversation (all in English), and is justified by a presumed homage to Chas Addams.

Old Lady and The Pigeons, the Annecy 1997 Grand Prix winning film by Sylvain Chomet.

Moscow's Garri Bardine expresses himself in a delicious blend of American, French and Russian in his model animation Puss in Boots. He received a special mention "for the direction and the characters" for this film. Bardine won a Grand Prize at Annecy 1991 for his adaptation of a Perrault tale in the same style: The Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. This year, he also presented in competition an advertising film for Coca Cola called Troika Dolls. He declared with humor that he considers himself "an old animator and a young capitalist."

If old Russia made magic with the bewitching The Mermaid, painted on glass by Alexander Petrov (Special Jury Prize), one could discern the title "citizen of the world" in the flying Dutchman Paul Driessen, author of The End of the World in Four Seasons. With its eight chilling little dramas playing out simultaneously on as many areas of the screen, it deserved the International Jury Prize it received, honoring its innovative singularity. Driessen himself moves at full speed, sometimes teaching, always drawing, to the four corners of the planet.