If you like to second-guess jury decisions, Ottawa '96 was the perfect animation festival for you. Almost as good as the O.J. Simpson trial. Even the Grand Prize Winner engaged in some public secondguessing.

Ottawa award winners, Igor Kovalyov, Pritt Parn and Paul Dressien.

When Russian animator Igor Kovalyov came forward to accept his best film of the festival trophy for Bird in the Window, he was suitably gracious if somewhat stunned. He thought Priit Parn would win it for his film 1895.

This was the perfect ending to an enjoyable animation festival that featured some peculiar choices for inclusion in the competition, several surprising prize-winners, and no clearly outstanding triumphs. So it was easy to second-guess things here.

I'm not suggesting in any way that the jury was less than competent or that Bird in the Window was an unworthy winner or that the festival's line-up was skimpy.

On the contrary, Kovalyov's film was richly designed and intriguingly plotted. The festival itself was crammed with good movies that were, given certain limitations, wellprogrammed. And, in determining the awards, the jury was impressively skillful and diplomatic in finding ways to ensure that no one felt cheated. Second-guessing is much easier when first choices aren't very obvious, when no one dominates. That was the case at Ottawa this year.

The Warner Bros. crew at the Ottawa Picnic: Standing (left to right): Piet Kroon, Allison Abate, Ron Tippe Sitting (left to right):Tom Knott, Babs Parent, Dave Master, Catherine Winder and Ellen Cockrill.

First Films
Surprisingly, the most competitive category of all had to be the one for first films. The National Film Board of Canadasponsored award in this category went to Mike Booth for his fiveminute film The Saint Inspector. Amusingly described in the program as the story of "a higher being in a state of pious bliss [who] endures the attention of a meddling official", this bizarre and irreverent film proves that England is securing its future as the model-animation capital of the world. Yet few people in the audience would have objected if any one of the nine other films in the category had been given the prize. The overall quality was that good.

The jury indicated just how good by giving special mention to two other first films--to the boldly black and white (no colors, no greys even) film Tale about the Cat and the Moon by Pedro Serragina which takes anthropomorphism in a slightly different direction, and to the elusive Lazarus by Vanessa Cruz.

More revealingly, two other films from this category, the hilarious Hilary and the equally funny Gagarin, already recognized at other animation festivals, were multiple award winners in the craft and media areas here. (And Da DA, also a firsttime effort, was not entered in this category.) So it looks like the near future of the art of animation is very bright.