The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) unveiled the winners at its 45th anniversary edition. The marquee winners were: Bob Spit–We Do Not Like People (directed by Cesar Cabral) which earned the Grand Prize for Feature Animation; Honekami (A Bite of Bone, directed by Honami Yano), recipient of the Grand Prize for Short Animation; and Night Bus (directed by Joe Hsieh), garnering the Public Prize voted upon by festival attendees.
Bob Spit–We Do Not Like People brings viewers into the head of cartoonist Angeli and into the post-apocalyptic world of Bob Spit.
Honekami is an animated work reflecting on a young girl’s relationship with her father at his funeral.
And Night Bus is an animated short taking audiences on a wild ride of intrigue and vengeance.
Hosted on line, this year’s festival received 2,528 entries from 38 different countries from around the world. Winners were chosen from the 107 animated works selected for official competition.
Canadian stop-motion animation, The Shaman’s Apprentice (Zacharias Kunuk), was also a big winner, taking home the Canadian Film Institute (CFI) Award for Best Canadian Animation along with the prize for Best Narrative Short.
Here’s a full rundown of winners:
Grand Prize for Short Animation
Winner: Honekami (A Bite of Bone) | Honami Yano | Japan
Jury Comment: This film was made on top of traditional techniques. But it has the power to lead us in a new direction. In an image composed of dots, we freely cross places and memories as if we are all small dots. After looking at the work, we can see why the director used these techniques. And it leaves a long lingering impression.
Grand Prize for Animated Feature
Winner: Bob Spit–We Do Not Like People | Cesar Cabral | Brazil
Special Mention: Elulu | Gabriel Verdugo Soto | Chile
Jury Comment: For its melange of mainstream and DIY, documentary and fiction, ingenious and visually attractive story of an artist and his universe, the Grand Prize goes to Bob Spit–We Do Not Like People by Cesar Cabral, Brazil.
Public Prize
Winner: Night Bus | Joe Hsieh | Taiwan
Canadian Film Institute (CFI) Award for Best Canadian Animation
Winner: The Shaman’s Apprentice | Zacharias Kunuk | Canada
Special Mention: Meneath: The Island of Hidden Ethics | Terril Calder | Canada
Vimeo Staff Pick Award
Winner: Un kilomรจtre ร pied (Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty, Fifty Miles a Day) | Mathieu Georis | Belgium
Animated Short Competition – Category Prizes
Best Non-Narrative
Winner: Anxious Body | Yoriko Mizushiri | France and Japan
Jury Comment: Without visual texture, the film touches our bodies through its visceral fusion of the subconscious, unconscious, and conscious states of the mind and body.
Best Narrative
Winner: The Shaman’s Apprentice | Zacharias Kunuk | Canada
Jury Comment: The Shaman’s Apprentice is a masterful work of storytelling and the sharing of traditional Inuit knowledge utilizing impeccably detailed sets, costumes, props and puppets and told beautifully with precision and care. Using the Arctic landscape as a metaphor to the spiritual world, Zacharias Kunuk invites us to learn about Inuit shamanism and spirituality, a part of Inuit culture that was hidden for so long by colonialism. Like the Shaman, Kunuk transmits his knowledge and teachings through this film, and it is as if he is turning to us at the end and asking, “What have we learned?”
Commissioned
Winner: Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane ‘Ten Degrees of Strange’ | Lynn Tomlinson | United States and United Kingdom
Bento Box Award for Best Student Animation
Winner: Space | Zhong Xian | United Kingdom
Jury Comment: Space moves us through the cyclical nature of falling in and out of love with swooping shots, original and playful transitions, a simple yet bold and expressive style, and shows us that love, like animation, can be a cycle that repeats itself.
Animation for Young Audiences (Preschool) Competition
Winner: Bรฉmol | Oana Lacroix | Switzerland
Special Mention 1: Konigiri-Kun Concert | Mari Miyazawa | Japan
Special Mention 2: S is for Spiders | Warren Brown | Canada
Special Mention 3: Ink | Erik Verkerk & Joost van den Bosch | The Netherlands
Animation for Young Audiences (Ages 6-12) Competition
Winner: T’as vendu mes rollers (You Sold My Rollerskates?) | Margaux Cazal, Jeanne Hammel, Louis Holmes, Sandy Lachkar, Agathe Leroux & Lรฉa Rey–Mauzaize | France
Special Mention: Only a child | Simones Giampaolo | Switzerland
Animated Series Competition
Winner: One Day At A Time ‘The Politics Episode’ | M.R. Horhager & Phill Lewis | United States and Canada
Virtual Reality Competition
Winner: Strands of Mind | Adrian Meyer | Germany
Canadian Student Competition
Winner: Don’t Think About Her | Liza Desya | Sheridan College
Special Mention 1: Fleeting: Here and There | Gilnaz Arzpeyma | Concordia University
Special Mention 2: The GOAT | Alexandra Ouchev | Dawson College
Animated Short Competition – Craft Awards
Best Script
Winner: All Those Sensations in My Belly | Marko Djeska | Croatia and Portugal
Best Design
Winner: Abandoned Village | Mariam Kapanadze | Georgia
Best Animation Technique
Winner: Steakhouse | ล pela ฤadeลพ | Slovenia, Germany, and France
Best Sound Design
Winner: A Family That Steals Dogs | John C. Kelley | United States
