Jun 21, 2021

Winners of Annecy: "Run Away", "Bobspit", "Peel" and "Vanilla" won the top prize

The curtain has come down on a most unusual edition of Annecy. Held in a hybrid format for the first time, the festival drew more than 8,000 badgeholders, half of them onsite - a significant drop from the peak of 12,300 in 2019, but a notable achievement in the circumstances.

Not that any of this affected the quality of the competition, the results of which were announced over the weekend. On the feature side, the big winner was Flee, which took home the Cristal and Gan Foundation Award. Already honored at Sundance, the documentary tells the story of a gay Afghan refugee in Denmark who harbors a big secret. Neon will release the film in North America.

Afghanistan also figures in My Sunny Maad, the first animated feature from Michaela Pavlátová, in which a Czech woman moves to Kabul to be with her husband. The film won the Jury Award. In the Contrechamp competition, the prize went to Bob Spit - We Do Not Like People, a stop-motion documentary of sorts based on the work of Brazilian cartoonist Angeli. The feature was originally supposed to play last year, but the pandemic delayed production.

Swiss productions put in a strong showing. The Cristal for a short film went to Peel, a(nother!) documentary, this one a portrait of a retirement home; co-director Samuel Patthey mentioned the project to us in 2019, during an interview about his previous film. The French-Swiss tv special Vanille took the Cristal for a tv production. Directed by Guadeloupe-born Guillaume Lorin, it follows the adventures of a Parisian girl in the island territory.

Read on for a full list of winners:

Cristal for a Feature Film

Flee - Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark/France/Norway/Sweden

Jury Award

My Sunny Maad - Michaela Pavlátová, Czech Republic/France/Slovakia

Jury Distinction

The Crossing - Florence Miailhe, Poland

Gan Foundation Award for Distribution

Flee - Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark/France/Norway/Sweden

Contrechamp Award

Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People - Cesar Cabral, Brazil

Contrechamp Jury Distinction

Archipelago - Félix Dufour-Laperrière, Canada

Cristal for a Short Film

Peel - Samuel Patthey, Silvain Monney, Switzerland

Jury Award

Easter Eggs - Nicolas Keppens, Belgium/France/Netherlands

Jury Distinction – Special Distinction for Direction

Affairs of the Art - Joanna Quinn, U.K.

Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film

Hold Me Tight - Mélanie Robert-Tourneur, Belgium/France

Off-Limits Award

Tunable Mimoid - Vladimir Todorovic, Australia

Cristal for a TV Production

Vanille - Guillaume Lorin, France/Switzerland

Jury Award for a TV Series

Japan Sinks: 2020 “The Beginning of the End” - Masaaki Yuasa, Japan

Jury Award for a TV Special

Mum Is Pouring Rain - Hugo de Faucompret, France

Cristal for a Commissioned Film

Kai, “A Little Too Much” - Martina Scarpelli, U.S.

Jury Award for a Commissioned Film

Help! We Have a Blind Patient - Robin Jensen, Norway

Cristal for a Graduation Film

Hippocampe - Zehao Li, China

Jury Award

Avant - Marcell Mostoha, Hungary

Jury Distinction for Art Direction

Butterfly Jam - Shih-Yen Huang, France/Taiwan

Cristal for the Best VR Work

Replacements (Penggantian) - Jonathan Hagard, Germany/Indonesia/Japan