Jan 28, 2015

Don Hertzfeld's "The World of Tomorrow" Wins Sundance Short Film Grand Jury Award

“World of Tomorrow” by Don Hertzfeldt. (Click to enlarge.)

Film awards like the Oscars and the Golden Globes tend to segregate animated films from live-action films, but this ghettoizing of animation doesn't always happen at film festivals. At the Sundance Film Festival, for example, all the shorts (animation, live-action and documentaries) are allowed to compete for a single grand jury prize. And what happens when animation is allowed to sit at the big-boy table-

It wins, of course.

Last night Don Hertzfeldt's new short World of Tomorrow notched the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, picked from 60 shorts in competition. The jurors who made the decision were K.K. Barrett, Alia Shawkat and Autumn de Wilde.

Amazingly it's the second time that Hertzfeldt has accomplished this feat at Sundance. He also won the top short film prize at Sundance in 2007 for his short Everything Will Be OK.

Don expressed his elation on Twitter:

Sundance's animation-specific short film award was won by French filmmaker Paul Cabon for Storm Hits Jacket (Tempête sur anorak). We've been keeping track of Paul's work for some time, and first wrote about his animation on Cartoon Brew three years ago.

Watch the trailer for Storm Hits Jacket below: