The "48-H-3D-Jam" Live Competition
Saturday night. So much animation makes it difficult to see everything, well, almost impossible! As well, there are six teams of animation students competing to create 30-second animations in 3D CGI, within 48 hours, set up and working in an area open to the public and festival visitors. Close to midnight on Saturday, with just 12 hours to their deadline, I venture to interview the competitors onsite and am lucky to catch some of their comments. "We will be working through all night!" explain Kathrin Desch & Elahe, the team from the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach (Germany.) Their determination is echoed by all the competitors and some teams are aiming for 90 seconds or more.

Meanwhile, Woijciech Hoffmann and Cezary Kwasny, the team from the Academy of Fine Arts Poznan (Poland) expresses great confidence, "We already have covered most of the project... " Their approach was to mix different kinds of animation, by also recording video footage outdoors on location in Stuttgart "... of people, trees and buildings ... " and mixing it with their animation and the 3D Red Girl character. Their film Negative, combining different imagery and techniques, finally produced within the 48 hours went on to win the 48-H-3D-Jam Red Girl Session presented at the Young Animation Party on the following night.

The overall high standard of all the student animation is reflected by the student films also selected for the main international competitions. This year's winner of the "Young Animation" award went to Beton.

Schools Presentations and "Young Animation"
Also of great interest at the festival were the international "School Presentations" programs showing student productions presented by teachers and students from the courses with discussion about their programs, content and approaches. This year's selection included the well known HFF "Konrad Wolf" Potsdam-Babelsberg (Germany) St. Joost Academy, Breda (The Netherlands) the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (Israel).

The overall high standard of all the student animation is well reflected by the student films also selected for the main international competitions, including this year's winner of the "Young Animation" award, Beton, 6 min., Bezalel Academy auf Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel 2006, by Ariel Belinco and Michael Faust. The jury statement says: "We noticed the generally high standards of technical achievement of the animation schools. At the same time we wanted to draw the attention on the personal commitment of the authors. So we choose the film that succeeded to portray a delicate political situation with emotional involvement revealing human stupidity in a warm and humorous way." The animation shows a group of soldiers' various attempts to obliterate a kite flying in the sky.

Workshops and Studios
Then there were also the filmmaker workshops by luminary animators, providing valuable insight to the work, techniques and creative processes of individual animation directors, namely Regina Pessoa, Bill Plympton, Raimund Krumme and Mikhail Aldashin.

As well as the workshops, the major studio presentations were of great popularity. In a more mainstream context, this included presentations by Aardman Animation productions, by Sony Pictures Imageworks presenting 15 years of digital imagery and animation, and Buena Vista's special preview of the new Pixar animation, Ratatouille. This was particularly interesting as preview excerpts were shown from the feature animation, including in-production sequences that had not been shown elsewhere.

Just as there are more animated films in the shorts competitions possibly deserving of prizes, there are many more wonderful animations seen at this festival that are worthy of comment or review than I can write about. For passionate animation enthusiasts, visit the festival and also try the festival's Best of Animation DVD available from ITFS website. Next year, the 15^th Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart is planned for May 1-6, 2008.

Awards of the 14th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film/May 1, 2007

International Competition
Grand Prix -- State of Baden-Wuerttemberg & City of Stuttgart Grand Award for Animated Film with a cash prize of €15,000: La memoria dei cani (The Memories of Dogs), by Simone Massi, 8 min., Italy / France 2006

International Promotion Award for the best graduation film with a cash prize of €10,000: My Date From Hell, by Tim Weimann, Tom Bracht, 14 min, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Germany 2006

SWR Audience Award, with a cash prize of €6,000: Migration assistée (Aided Migration), by Pauline Pinson, 4.33 min., France 2006

Young Animation
Award for the best student film with a cash prize of €2,500, sponsored by Landesanstalt für Kommunikation Baden-Wuerttemberg and MFG Filmförderung Baden-Wuerttemberg: Beton, by Ariel Belinco, Michael Faust, 6 min., Bezalel Academy auf Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel 2006

Special Mention: Elet Vonal (Life-Line), by Tomek Ducki, 6.40 min., Hungary 2006

Tricks for Kids
Award for the best children's animated film with a cash prize of €4,000, donated by NICK: Zhiharka, by Oleg Uzhinov, 13.11 min., Russia 2006

Special Mention: Ernst im Herbst, by Jakob Schuh, Michael Sieber, 6.30 min, Germany 2006

AniMovie
Award for the best animated feature film with a cash prize of €2,500, donated by Leonhardt & Kern Werbung GmbH: Azur et Asmar, by Michel Ocelot, 93 min., Frankreich / France 2006

Animated Series
Award for the best TV animated series with a cash prize of €2,500, donated by EM. Entertainment GmbH: Little Princess: I Want My Snail, by Edward Foster, 11 min., Great Britain 2006

Special Mention: SpongeBob SquarePants: "Dunces and Dragons," by Vincent Waller, 22 min., USA 2005

48H-3D-Jam Red Girl Session
Winner: Negative, which was produced in 48 hours at the 14. Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film by Cezary Kwasny und Wojciech Hoffmann, Academy of Fine Arts Poznan, Poland

German Animation Screenplay Award
The German Animation Screenplay Award, donated by the Evangelical Church in Germany, to the value of €5,000: Sing, Hase, sing! (Sing Rabbit Sing!) by writer Heike Sperling and producer/writer Oliver Huzly, Berlin

Sabrina Schmid holds a BA and post graduate diploma in fine art painting and a graduate diploma in applied film and television in animated film. She made award-winning animated films (Australia) that screened at international festivals, including Ann Arbor, Annecy, Hiroshima, Stuttgart and Sydney. Since 2001, she is senior lecturer in animation at the University of Teesside, U.K., where she curated animations for the Animex 2005 festival. Her own recent animation showed at the AV-fest in Newcastle, and she also writes for the magazine Imagine, U.K.