Palm Springs International Animation Festival Announces Award Winners
The Palm Springs International Animation Festival (PSIAF) announced the winners of its inaugural awards. The festival, which ran Nov. 9-11 included more than 250 short and six feature-length animated films from over 103 countries, along with panel discussions, seminars and educational programming.
The festival opened with a screening of Loving Vincent, a unique animated film comprised of more than 65,000 hand-painted frames done in Vincent Van Gogh’s unique oil-painting style. The film, from Breakthru Films, won best animated feature and was accompanied by a special demonstration from artists Charlene Mosley and Tiffanie Mang showing how to paint in Van Gogh's style.
Other feature presentations included Bilal: A New Breed of Hero, the first fully Middle Eastern-funded and produced CG-animated film inspired by the story of Bilal Ibn Rabah and Tehran Taboo, a rotoscope-animated feature directed by Iranian-born Ali Soozandeh that explores inhibited existence in Iran through the eyes of four young people, interweaving the sex lives of a prostitute, a male musician and two young women in Tehran.
The first annual PSIAF also featured a robust program of animated short films, exploring a range of methods including hand-drawn 2D animation, watercolor animation, paper cut-outs, hand-painted animation and stop-motion animation, along with other 2D and 3D techniques.
The winners of the first annual PSIAF are:
Best Animated Feature
Loving Vincent
Best Hand Drawn Animated Short
The Potato Eaters
Director: Martin Kukal
Best Watercolor Animated Short
Strange Case
Director: Zbigniew Czapla
Best Paper Animated Short
Tis
Director: Chloë Lesueur
Best Classic and Traditional Animated Short
New York City Sketchbook
Director: William Hartland
Best Hand Painted Animated Short
Yellow Rose
Director: Xin Li
Best Amazing Stop-Motion Animated Short
Tokri
Director: Suresh Eriyat
Best LGBT Animated Short
Fishy
Director: Joe Sulsenti
Best 3D Dark Comedy Animated Short
Afterwork
Director: Andres Aguilar
Best Abstract Animated Short
Virtual Actors in Chinese Opera
Director: Tobias Gremmler
Best Sand & Salt Animated Short
Angels of the Seashore
Director: Kseniya Slmonova
Best Powerful Dark & Mysterious 3D Animated Short
Citipati
Director: Andreas Feix
Best Global Issues & Socially Relevant Animated Short
The Neverending Wall
Director: Silvia Carpizo
Best 3D Sci-Fi Fantasy Animated Short
Agent Aiden: The Planet of the Slaves
Director: Martin Lambert and Laurent Beghin
Best VFX and Rotoscoped Animated Short
Mosquito: The Bite of Passage
Director: Brian Vincent Rhodes
Best 3D Drama Animated Short
Weeds
Director: Kevin Hudson
Best Music Video Animated Short
Escape
Director: Brandon Oldenburg
Best Academy of Dream Awards Animated Short
Hide & Shriek
Director: Dani Bowman
Best 3D Fantasy Animated Short
Awaken
Director: Emerson Eagp
Best 2D Childrens Animated Short
New Toy
Director: Rogerio Boechat
Best 2D Action Adventure Animated Short
Salesman Pete
Director: Marc Bouyer
Best Fun Stop-Motion Animated Short
No-No Wants to Try a Sport
Director: Auvray Mathieu
Best 3D Drama Adventure Animated Short
Geno
Director: Dato Kiknavelidze
Best 2D Drama Animated Short
New Ariadne’s Thread
Director: Claude Luyet
Best Winter Holiday Animated Short
The Christmas Star
Director: Kok Sen Lai
Best Experimental Animated Short
Bi-Polaroid
Director: John Morena
Best 2D Odd and Twisted Animated Short
Dinner for Few
Director: Nassos Vakalis
Best 3D Heartwarming Animated Short
Adija
Director: Apollonia Thomaier
Best 3D Comedy Animated Short
Voyagers
Director: Gauthier Ammeux, Valentine Baillon, Benjamin Chaumeny
Best TV Series Animated Short
Paper Girls
Director: Tone Thyne
Best 3D Romantic Comedy Animated Short
Tanguito Argentino
Director: Joaquin Braga
Best Cool Stop-Motion Animated Short
Ethnophoobia
Director: Joan Zhonga
Best 3D Dark Animated Short
Legacy
Director: Guilhem Carayre
Source: Palm Springs International Animation Festival