The biannual Hiroshima InternationalAnimation Festival 2012 came to a conclusion today. The final competition consisted of 66 works
selected from 2,110 entries from around the world. The international jury included Aleksandra Korejwo (Poland), Igor Kovalyov (USA), Irina Margolina (Russia), Kosei Ono (Japan), and Marv Newland (Canada) – whose classic
film Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969) was
screened on 16mm at my 10th birthday party and had a profound effect
on me ;) The international honorary
president of the festival was Peter Lord
of Aardman. A selection of Lord’s works were also screened at the festival.
The winners are as
follows:
Grand Prize
I Saw Mice Burying a Cat (Dmitry Geller, China, 2011)
Hiroshima Prize
Kali, the Little Vampire (Regina Pessoa, Portugal/France/Canada, Switzerland, 2012)
Debut Prize
Sticky Ends
(Osman Cerfon, France, 2010)
Renzo Kinoshita Prize
Futon
(Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan, 2012)
Audience Prize
Head Over Heels (Timothy Reckart, UK, 2012)
Special International Jury Prize
It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don
Hertzfeldt, USA, 2011)
Ursus
(Reinis Petersons, Latvia, 2011)
Sunday (Patrick
Doyon, Canada, 2011)
Tram (Michaela Pavlátová, France, 2012)
Chinti (Natalia Mirzoyan, Russia, 2011)
Special Prize
two (Steven
Subotnick, USA, 2011)
Howl (Natalie Bettelheim+Sharon Michaeli, Israel,
2011)
The Little Bird and the Leaf (Lena von Döhren, Switzerland, 2012)
The Great Rabbit (Atsushi Wada, France, 2011)
Muybridge’s Strings (Koji Yamamura, Canada/Japan, 2011)
Read more about the winning films at the official website for Hiroshima 2012.
Seven works by Japanese artists made the official competition:
The Great Rabbit (Atsushi Wada, 2011) (read review)
Muybridge’s Strings (Koji Yamamura, 2011) (read review)
The Light (Yuka Sukegawa, 2010)
Rain Town (Hiroyasu Ishida, 2011)
SPONCHOI Pispochoi (pecoraped, 2010)
Yonalure: Moment to Moment (Ayaka Nakata + Yuki Sakitani, 2011)
Futon (Yoriko Mizushiri, 2012)
In addition to the competition, this
year’s festival celebrated the 30th anniversary of ASIFA-JAPAN,
which was founded by the co-founders of the Hiroshima festival – the current ASIFA
president Sayoko Kinoshita and her
late husband Renzo Kinoshita (read
more about them). The ASIFA-JAPAN
30th Anniversary Special Program celebrated the works of its members through
screenings of their animated works and an exhibition of objects related to
their works including puppets, paintings, books, and installations.
I was deeply disappointed not to be
able to attend the festival this year as there were many special presentations
I would have loved to have seen: a Jiří
Trnka Special Program to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his
birth; an homage to the late Nobuhiro Aihara (see poster for this year's festival),
whose works are so rarely screened outside of Japan; and a focus on animation
from Norway. There was also an omnibus presentation
of the best in recent world animation, a special on contemporary Japanese
animation, a program for children, and a program on works by students. In a nod to the founding ethos of the
festival, a selection of peace-themed films were also screened dedicated to “the
spirit and the heart of Hiroshima.”
cmmhotes 2012
