Animated feature “Ernest & Celestine” wins the Grand Prize at the 2013 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
NEW YORK, NY – The New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival has announced the NYICFF 2013 festival award winners, which were presented at the annual NYICFF Awards Ceremony this past Sunday, March 17 at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Manhattan.
Three feature films were honored, including the French animated Ernest and Celestine, from directors Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner, which received the NYICFF Grand Prize – the festival’s top Audience Award. The film appeared in Berlin and Toronto and won France’s Cesar for Best Animated film prior to making its US premiere at New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival.
Other NYICFF Audience Award Feature prizes went to Tom Shu-yu Lin’s Starry Starry Night, which appeared as part of the Festival’s Girls’ POV Program, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children, which received Japan’s Academy Prize for Animation the day before its premiere at the Festival. New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival has presented the US premiere of all three Mamoru Hosoda features.
The NYICFF 2013 Special Jury Award for Best Animated Short was awarded to UK film, I Am Tom Moody, by Ainslie Henderson, while Best Live Action Short went to Spain’s The Runaway by Victor Carrey. As an Academy-qualifying festival, both films are eligible for consideration for the Academy Awards in their respective categories.
NYICFF 2013 JURY:
- John Canemaker –Academy Award-winning animator
- Geena Davis –Academy Award-winning actor (The Accidental Tourist, Thelma& Louise)
- Tomm Moore – AcademyAward nominated animator/director (The Secret of Kells)
- Lynne McVeigh –Associate Professor of Children’s Media at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
- Matthew Modine –Award-winningactor (Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises)
- Dana Points –Editor-in-Chief, Parents Magazine
- Susan Sarandon –Academy Award-winning actor (Dead Man Walking, Arbitrage)
- James Schamus –Award-winning writer/producer (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm)
- Evan Shapiro –President, Participant Television
- Christine Vachon –Award-winning producer (Boys Don’t Cry, Mildred Pierce)
- Gus Van Sant –Academy Award nominated director (Milk, Good WillHunting)
- Taika Waititi –Academy Award nominated writer/director (Two Cars One Night,Boy)
- Jeffrey Wright –Award-winning actor (Basquiat, The Ides of March)
Source: NYICFF
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
