Sep 30, 2024

Flow” and ‘La Voix Des Sirènes’ win top awards at the Ottawa International Animated Film Festival

The 2024 Ottawa International Animation Film Festival (OIAF), which closed yesterday in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, presented an impressive lineup of short and feature films, and on Saturday, September 28, the awards were announced at the National Arts Centre.

The winning feature film was the stunning and mysterious “Flow” by Gints Zilvarodis. The film premiered earlier this year as part of the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and won four awards at the Annecy Film Festival.

The $3.7 million Belgian/French/Latvian co-production will open in New York and Los Angeles on November 22, followed by a U.S. release in December. The Ottawa win should cement the fact that “Flow” is one of the best animated films of 2024 and an Oscar contender in the upcoming awards season.

The feature film jury, consisting of Neil Hunter (Canada), Dahy Chung (South Korea), and Tomas Volda (Croatia), had this to say about “Flow” An immersive plot expressed without words, refreshing animation and world-building made “Flow” this year's Grand Prix winner in the Animated Feature Film category.

The top prize for Best Animated Short Film went to Italian master Gianluigi Toccafondo for his new film “La Voix des Sirènes” Like “Flow,” Toccafondo's 19-minute mixed media short exploits the mysteries of the underwater universe.

The short film jury, composed of Jonathan Djob Nkondo (France/UK), Anastasiya Verlinska (Ukraine), and Ivana Volda (Croatia), said of “La Voix des Sirènes”:

This visually stunning and timeless work uses a captivating mixed media approach to lead us through a beautifully dark and twisted fairy tale with an enchanting voice. For its originality in both technique and storytelling, this year's Grand Prize for Animated Short Film went to La Voix des Sirènes.

Arash Akhgari's In the Shallows topped this year's Canadian short film competition. This timely National Film Board of Canada film was described as “a deep dive into the shallow and fragmented world of news, entertainment, and advertising, easily drowning in the dangerous allure of mass media.”

The audience went in a different direction, choosing Daniel Stalin-Altman's uninhibited and sexually arousing stop-motion piece “Carrotica” for the General Award.

In addition, Jadwiga Kowalska's “Car Back from the Sea” won the Hélène Tanguay Award for Humor. This award was chosen by the filmmaking duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, nominated for numerous Academy Awards: [Passionate, funny, and deeply personal, the film is a playful look at a less than ideal political and social situation, set in Poland in the 1980s. It deftly transforms a less than ideal political and social situation into a playful, optimistic story set in 1980s Poland.

The full award list is as follows:

Grand Prix for Best Animated Short Film

La Voix des Sirènes - Gianluigi Toccafondo

Grand Prix for Best Animated Feature Film

Flow - Gints Zilbalodis

WACOM Public Award

Carrotica - Daniel Sterlin-

WACOM Public Award

WACOM Public Award Altman Prize

DIRECTORS GUILD OF CANADA AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN ANIMATION

WINNER: In the Shallows, Arash Akgari

Honorable Mention Corridor “Jump Cut”, Winston Hacking

Honorable Mention Hairy Legs. Andrea Dorfman

Hélène Tanguy Prize for Humor

Winner: “The Car Back from the Sea” (Samochód, który wróci. (Z MORZA) - Jadwiga Kowalska

Best Non-Best Narrative

You've got a friend in me - Peter Millard

Best Narrative

Beautiful Men - Nicholas Capens

Best COMMISSIONS

Corridor “Jump Cut” - Winston Hacking

BENTO BOX AWARD FOR BEST STUDENT ANIMATION

“Martyrs' Handbook” - Maks Zontkowski

BEST CANADIAN STUDENT

WINNER: 91 Thousand Unrelenting Stitches - Samuel Wasserman (Ontario College of Art and Design)

Honorable Mention: Hope in the Tundra - Jesu Medina (Concordia University)

Honorable Mention: Rudy Goes Sightseeing - Sadie Berger (Concordia University)

Youth Animation 13+ Competition

Girls In Real Life Situations - Ofre Sparrow Vaknin

Animation for Youth 7+ Contest

Winner: Freak of Nature - Alexandra Rahmer

Honorable Mention About A Cow (O kráv.) Pavla Bashtanová

Animated Series Competition

Scavengers Lane “The Signal” - Joe Bennett, Charles Hüttner

Honorable Mention: Bad Bad Belgium - Jasper DeKlerk, Wawter Medel Jonas Wellens

Best Screenplay

“Death in Irpin” - Anastasia Farilayeva

Best Design Award

“Persevez” - Alexandra Ramirez, Laura Gonçalves [48] [49] XPPEN Award Best Technical Award [50] [51] House of Glass - Boris Labbé [52] [53] Best Sound Design Award [54] [55] Once Upon a Time on Earth - Phil Malloy [56] .