The coveted short film grand prize at the 30th International Festival of Animated Film at Annecy went to TRAGIC STORY HAPPY ENDING by Regina Pessoa for France while the black-and-white French film, RENAISSANCE, won the Cristal for Best Feature. The awards were presented at the closing ceremony held on Saturday, June 10, 2006 in Annecy, France.
RENEAISSANCE, by Christian Volckman beat out Oscar-winner WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT from Nick Park and Steve Box and the box-office winning film, ASTÉRIX ET LES VIKINGS by Stefan Fjeldmark and Jesper Moller. The lesser-ranked contenders were GIN-IRO NO KAMI NO AGITO, by Keiichi Sugiyama, and XXXHOLIC, by Tsutomu Mizushima.
Festival special guest Tim Burton was awarded a special Cristal award for his film achievements, which he said he would treasure as one of his few awards and thought the design would look good as his gravestone. The festival also screened his short from 1983, VINCENT, which was ranked 43rd on the festivals newly announced 100 films for a century of animation list.
Pessoa, an animator in Portugal, had to raise the money to make TRAGIC STORY HAPPY ENDING in France from studio Follimage. Earlier in the evening she had been awarded Cineculte Award for a short film, given by TPS.
Joanna Quinn, of Great Britain, was a triple winner for her film, DREAMS AND DESIRES - FAMILY TIES, picking up the Special Jury and Audience Awards, as well as the Fipresci Award.
The Short and Feature Fiction Films Category winners are:
The Annecy Cristal TRAGIC STORY HAPPY ENDING by Regina Pessoa (France)
Special distinctionRABBIT by Run Wrake (U.K.)
Jury's special award DREAMS AND DESIRES - FAMILY TIES by Joanna Quinn (U.K.)
Audience award DREAMS AND DESIRES - FAMILY TIES by Joanna Quinn (U.K.)
Crystal for Best FeatureRENAISSANCE, by Christian Volckman (France, U.K., Luxemburg)
"Jean-Luc Xiberras" award for best first film DELIVERY by Till Nowak (Germany)
TV AND COMMISSIONED FILMS
The Cristal for best TV production (Grand Prix Annecy 2006) POCOYO A Little Something Between Friends, David Cantolla, Guillermo Garcia (Spain)
Special award for a TV series ZOMBIE HOTEL First Day, Luc Vinciguerra (France)
Award for best TV SpecialLITTLE WANG AND THE DRAGON, Henri Heidsieck (France)
Educational, scientific or industrial film award THE BIRDS AND THE BEES A SECRET YOU SHOULDNT KEEP, Young Jim Kwak, Young Beom Kim (South Korea)
Advertising or promotional film award MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES HUMAN BALL, Andrea Hasle, (Belgium)
Award for best music video Thomas Fersen Hyacinthe, Sebastien Cosset, Joann Star (France)
SCHOOL AND GRADUATION FILMS
Award for best graduation filmASTRONAUTS by Matthew Walker (U.K.)
Special jury award WALKING IN THE RAINY DAY by Hyun-myung Choi (South Korea)
Special distinction ABIGAIL by Toy Comley (Australia)
OTHER PRIZES
Junior jury award for a short filmONE D by Michael Grimshaw (Canada)
Junior jury award for a graduation film EGO by Louis Blaise, Thomas Lagache, Bastien Roger (France)SHORT FILMS FOR THE INTERNET
Net surfers' award UNLUCKY IN LOVE by Bernard Derriman (Australia)
FIPRESCI Award DREAMS AND DESIRES - FAMILY TIES by Joanna Quinn (U.K.)
UNICEF AwardBLACK ON WHITE by Andrey Tsvetkov (Bulgaria)
Cineculte Award for a short film TRAGIC STORY HAPPY ENDING by Regina Pessoa (France)
For more information on Annecy, visit www.annecy.org.
