In between Whoopi Goldberg's off-color humor and Roberto Benigni's exuberant antics, Blue Sky Studios' BUNNY, directed by Chris Wedge, picked up the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. The award was appropriately presented by the animated insects from Disney/Pixar's A BUG'S LIFE. For the second year in a row, AWN's reader poll predicted the correct Oscar winning film, with 48% of online voters choosing BUNNY. Other animation related Oscars included:


Original Song:

THE PRINCE OF EGYPT

"When You Believe"

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for its 51st British Academy Film Awards. Nominees for The Best Short Animated Film are:


1001 NIGHTS, Yukio Sonoyama/Mike Smith.

THE CANTERBURY TALES, Aida Zyablikova/Renat Zinnurov/Ashley Potter/Dave Antrobus/Claire Jennings/ Mic Graves/Joanna Quinn/Les Mills.

GOGWANA, Helen Nabarro/Deiniol Morris/Sion Jones/Michael Mort/Joe Turner.

HUMDRUM, Carla Shelley/Julie Lockhart/Peter Peake.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation has announced the winners of the 1998 College Television Awards Competition, recognizing excellence in college student film/video productions. Animation awards, sponsored by the Walter Lantz Foundation, were given out in both traditional and non-traditional categories. There will be a black tie Awards Gala on Sunday, March 7, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, followed by a public screening of the winning entries on Monday, March 8 (see Events below for additional information). The winners are:

The 18th annual Imagina 1999, Europe's premiere computer graphics festival, wrapped up on January 22. During the show, the 13th edition of the "Prix Pixel-INA" awards were presented. Blue Sky | VIFX's "Bunny" took home three awards including top honors, the Grand Prix Imagina. For more information on the festival, visit www.ina.fr. Here are the winners from this prestigious European awards program honoring the world's best computer graphics:


Grand Prix Imagina: "Bunny" by Chris Wedge of Blue Sky | VIFX (USA).

Mark Osborne's animated short film, "MORE," has won the Jury Award for Special Recognition for Short Filmmaking at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The 6-minute film, about an inventor's struggle to find meaning in a grey emotion-less world, is the world's first stop motion short produced for exhibition on 70mm/15 perf (IMAX). "MORE" is inspired by and features the instrumental song "Elegia" by British electronic pop group New Order.

The Scientific and Technical Academy Awards will be presented on Saturday, February 27 in Los Angeles. Avid Technology will receive an Oscar statuette for the concept, system design and engineering of the Avid Film Composer for motion picture editing. Of the thirty-four other awards (Academy plaques and certificates), the sole animation-related distinction goes to Cary Phillips of Industrial Light & Magic, who will receive a Technical Achievement award for the design and development of the "Caricature" Animation System

The results are in from the 20th Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latino Americano, which took place in Havana, Cuba, from December 1-11, 1998. All the films in competition were from Latin American countries. The following awards were given out for animated entries:

After four months of judging and over two hundred entries, the winners have been chosen for MTV's 1998 Character Screen Test competition. The contest was designed by the MTV animation development department as a way to discover new talented artists and voice actors. MTV is now in the process of assessing the various potential development possibilities of the winning entries. The winners are as follows:


1st place - $2000:
Mitch Greenblatt (New York City, New York)


2nd Place - $1500:
Thomas Schmid (New York City, New York)

The 22nd Cinanima International Animated Film Festival wrapped up on
November 15 in Espinho, Portugal. The international jury consisted of
Carlos Pinto Coelho (Portugal), Florence Henrard (Belgium), Borivoj
Dovnikovic (Croatia), Georges Sifianos (France) and Georges Schwizgebel
(Switzerland). Below is a complete list of winners as reported by the
festival:


CLASS A (less than 6 minutes) - tie

"Festival" by Roberto Catani (Italy).

"L'Arme du Crocodile" by Eric Blesin (Belgium).


CLASS B (between 6 and 13 minutes).

Sunday, November 22, marked the end of the 7th Holland Animation Film
Festival 1998. Awards were presented for both the international competition
for applied animation and student films. The jury for the international
competition for applied animation consisted of Garri Bardin (Russia), Paul
Bush (United Kingdom), Dingeman Kuilman (The Netherlands), Adriaan Lokman
(The Netherlands), and Linda Simensky (United States). They chose the
following films to receive the Golden Pegbar Awards:

The 26th annual Annie Awards ceremony, ASIFA-Hollywood's honoring of the best in animation, took place last Friday, November 13, at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. Disney's "Mulan" finished at the top of the pack winning ten out of the thirty categories, while Warner Bros. Television Animation was honored with six Annies. The awards, hosted by comedian Jay Thomas, will be televised on the Fox Family Channel sometime in December. Click here for a complete list of winners...

For the first time in the 26-year history of the Annie Awards, the show will be nationally televised. Fox
Family Channel will air the presentation honoring the best of the animation
industry at a yet-to-be-announced date in December. Confirmed presenters
for this year's show include voice artists Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson)
and the legendary June Foray, as well as actress T'keyah Krystal Keymaa
("Cosby," "In Living Color," "Waynehead"). Submissions of animated TV
shows, feature films, short subjects and commercials will be awarded in

Five thousand spectators attended the
animation programs during the five day 41st annual Leipzig International
Festival for Documentary and Animated Film which wrapped up on October 31
in Leipzig Germany. The prize for Outstanding Film went to "Underground" by
Matti Kütt (Estonia), and the Audience Prize went to "Hoelenangst" by
Benjamin Quabeck (Germany). For more information about next year's
festival, email dock-leipzig@t-online.de.

The Castelli Animati (Animated Castles) International Animated Film Festival held its second edition, October 15 - 17, 1998 in Rome, Italy. The prize winners were selected by an international jury: painter Carla Accardi (Italy), cartoonist and director Oscar Grillo (Argentina), director Daniele Luchetti (Italy), cartoonist and director Sergio Staino and director Pal Toth (Hungary).

Grand Prize and Audience Prize: “Geri’s Game” by Jan Pinkava (U.S.A.)

First Film Prize: “Sientje” by Christa Moesker (Netherlands).

The Sitges Fantasy Film Festival wrapped up on October 16 in Barcelona, Spain. The international jury for the "Anima't" animation festival within a festival was comprised of Jerry Beck (U.S.A.), Mercedes Gaspar (Spain) and Giorgio Valentini (Italy). They selected "Un Jour" by Marie Paccou (France) as Best Film, and gave an Honorable Mention to "Glassy Ocean" by Shigeru Tamura (Japan). In the main festival, Bill Plympton's film, "More Sex & Violence" won the "Best Short Film" award.

The Writer's Guild of America's Animation Writers Caucus presented its first-ever Animation Writing Award to Gordon Bressack, at its annual meeting and reception on Wednesday, October 7, 1998.

Girls, Inc. (formerly Girls Clubs of America), a U.S. non-profit organization devoted to “helping every girl become strong, smart and bold,” has announced that six women in the children’s entertainment industry will be honored at its annual celebration luncheon. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 10, 1998 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presented the 13th annual Gemini Awards on Sunday, October 4 in Toronto. The winner in the “Animated Program or Series” category is Nelvana Limited’s 2D series, “Sam & Max,” produced by Patrick Loubert, Gwenn Saunders Eckel, Michael Hirsh, Stephen Hodgins, Robert Ross, Clive A. Smith and J.D. Smith. The winner in the “Preschool Program or Series” category is Cochran Entertainment’s mixed-media show, “Theodore Tugboat,” produced by Andrew Cochran.

OTTAWA WINNERS. The Ottawa International Animation Festival wrapped up on Sunday night with an awards show at the National Arts Center in Canada’s capital city. The grand prize went to the new Estonian film, “Night of the Carrots,” by Priit Pärn who was on hand to accept the award as the festival also hosted a four-part retrospective of Estonian animation.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) has selected 34 achievements to be considered for 1998 Academy Awards. The selected achievements are announced in advance, "to enable those with claims of prior invention or with devices similar to those under consideration to advise the Academy," said category committee chair Edmund M. DiGiulio.