Five animated features are in the running for the European Film Awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne.
The nominees in the category European Animated Feature Film are: Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, Kristina Dufková’s Living Large, Claude Barras’ Savages, Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s They Shot The Piano Player.
Gints Zilbalodis’s second feature Flow centres on an independent cat obliged to seek allies among the animal kingdom after a devastating flood. It premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and later won four prizes at Annecy including the Competition jury award and feature film audience award. Flow is a Latvia, France and Belgium co-production.
Kristina Dufková’s debut feature Living Large won the jury prize in the Contrechamp section at Annecy. A combination of stop-motion puppet animation and 2D segments, it’s about a 12-year-old boy whose love of food and talent for cooking has started to show in his waistline. The animation is a co-production between Czech Republic, France and Slovakia.
Eco-animation Savages is Swiss director Claude Barras’ follow-up to his Oscar-nominated My Life As A Courgette. Set in the jungles of Borneo, it sees an eleven-year-old girl caught in the crossfire between loggers and palm oil plantation companies, and Indigenous communities and environmental activists. The Switzerland, France and Belgium co-production world premiered at Annecy.
Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream is about a young Spanish woman’s globe-spanning journey to intellectual and spiritual awakening. It world premiered at San Sebastian last year, and later won the Grand Prix in Annecy’s Contrechamp section. The film is a co-production between Spain, Germany and India.
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s They Shot The Piano Player follows a New York music journalist, voiced by Jeff Goldblum, who attempts to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of a young Brazilian piano virtuoso in 1976. The film world premiered last year at San Sebastian, and is a co-production between Spain, France, Netherlands, Portugal and Peru.
The committee which decided on the nominations was comprised of representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon, the European Association for Animation Film.
The five nominated films are also eligible to be voted for in the best European Film category thanks to a rule change announced last week by the European Film Academy.
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