Jan 23, 2018

2018 Academy Award nominations: The Film director's Reaction

Filmmaker reactions are starting to come in from those who have been nominated in the animated feature, short, and vfx categories. We'll update this post as we receive them.

Glen Keane, director:

Dave Mullins, director:

Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter, directors: “Thank you so much! We're very honored to be nominated. Our entire team poured love and passion into this project, stitch-by-stitch and frame-by-frame. We could not have created this film without them and we're overwhelmed with gratitude. It's been a fantastic journey and we're excited that more people will get to watch our film.”

Nidia Santiago and Edwina Liard, producers: “We are overwhelmed. This is such an honor, we want to thank all the wonderful Negative Space team and the Academy, thanks for all the support!”

Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer, directors: “We're beside ourselves right now, and just incredibly happy. Happy for the film and happy for all our fantastic collaborators here in Berlin, our producers at Magic Light, as well as our wonderful team in South Africa. It's a pretty unreal feeling to find your labor of love has been recognized in this way. We're deeply grateful to the Academy for this nomination. This was a hard film to make. What always steered us forward was the level of love our team had for this story – and the blessings we received from Luke Kelly, Roald Dahl's grandson, and from the great Quentin Blake. So, for everyone's work to receive such love in return today, it's the most beautiful reward. When we were making the film we often didn't have time to stop to eat – so now we'll go to one of the restaurants we always wanted to go to, for a celebratory dinner! Thank you to the Academy for this nomination, it means the world to us!

Michael Rose and Martin Pope, producers: “We're so thrilled that Revolting Rhymes has been recognized with an Oscar nomination. It's amazing. It's always such an honor to be recognized by the Academy in this way. The nomination is a great tribute to the brilliant work of the directors, Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer, and the entire crew who worked on the film.”

Tom McGrath, director: “It is truly such a thrill to be honored in a group of such diverse films. This nomination celebrates how much we all loved making The Boss Baby and the love we have for the artists that made it! Thank you, Academy!”

Ramsey Naito, producer: “We are so extremely honored by this nomination and want to thank the Academy members for their support of our film and the animation community as a whole. Our film is about the belief that there's enough love to go around – which is a wonderful idea to celebrate today!”

Dorota Kobiela, co-director: “This all started in an attic just before my 30th birthday, when I felt lost about what I was doing with my life. It is unbelievable that it has led to this. I am so proud we are the first Polish animation feature film to be nominated for an Oscar. I am equally proud that this year I am one of two women directors nominated in this category, which until now only had 4 women nominated out of 72 directors nominated. Maybe this is the year that we can start to change this imbalance. Most of all I am proud of my painters (over 60% of whom were women), my actors, and my crew. They believed in an undertaking that many considered crazy- to paint an entire film in oil-paints on canvas by hand. I am a small part at the head of a great team of dreamers! Our dreams were sustained by Vincent, so I wish he was here so I could thank him too!”

Hugh Welchman, co-director: “I couldn't sleep last night… I was so nervous. Loving Vincent is a Polish-UK co-production. It is the not only the first Polish animation feature film nominated for an Oscar, it is the first Polish animation feature film in history animated by a woman, my wife Dorota, I am so proud of her, and grateful to her for including me on this wonderful journey as her co-writer and co-director. Also as a Brit I am very proud that this film is the first animation feature film nomination from Britain that isn't produced by the national treasure that is Aardman! I am so grateful to the Academy for recognizing and honoring our labor of love, it really makes the world of difference to small films like ours, in amongst these $100m plus studio Goliaths. Really, their decision changes the lives of filmmakers like us.”

Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor:“We are immensely proud of this work and grateful to the Academy for recognizing War for the Planet of the Apes with a nomination today. This is the final film in the trilogy, and we've been really happy to see how audiences have been swept up by the emotional story of Caesar and his fellow ape characters.”

Dan Lemmon, visual effects supervisor: “We are thrilled with the recognition this film's visual effects have received, and this morning's nomination is truly an honor. We pushed the limits of our technology and our artists as we worked to create characters that were visually realistic and emotionally authentic.”