MIZUE Mirai / NAKAUCHI Yukie (Japan)

Jury Selections 3 min. 37sec.
Animated short film

This is a music video for a song by Japanese musician TOKUMARU Shugo, who in 2014 celebrated ten years since his debut. It is also a homage to Norman MCLAREN, marking the centenary of the father of experimental animation. It realizes the festiveness that creates music and animation through an exuberant metamorphosis of dynamic animating and organic graphics.

NAKATA Ayaka (Japan)

Jury Selections 2 min. 26sec.
Animated short film

This work expresses the concept of a boundary as a quadrangle that changes shape and size. A boundary is something arising from the position of a certain subject, and which influences the way we see or think. In this work, a young girl in red clothes is sleeping in a space surrounded by boundaries. When she awakes, she feels confined. The work was partly used in ONODERA Shuji's performance The Viewer (2013).

ZHU Yantong (China)

New Face Award 11 min. 3sec.
Animated short film

A father lies to his daughter Nunu that there is a cow inside her cup of milk. She believes him but when she has finished her milk, there is no cow. Nunu gradually stops trusting her father since he is always lying. This animated short film is based on the childhood memories of ZHU's father. The film depicts the father from the point of view of the child, scooping up the various lies that appear in everyday life. Hand-drawn on paper, the vibrant animation utilizing soft pastel textures recreates the atmosphere of a small town in Jiangnan in China in the 1980s.

Santiago 'Bou' GRASSO (Argentina)

Excellence Award 11 min. 50sec.
Animated short film

Argentina, 1983. While the military dictatorship comes to an end and democracy starts to awaken, a solitary woman dedicates her existence to taking care of her sick father, a former military commander. Although the outside world pushes for action and change, the woman sticks to her daily routine, driven by the pendulum of a clock. The film was made over a period of three years using stop motion animation and 3D computer graphics. Intricate models of people and props were also photographed and then processed digitally, adding a distinctive texture to the imagery. It is a beautiful portrayal of the everyday through richly expressive animation.

Anna BUDANOVA (Russia)

Grand Prize 9 min. 21sec.
Animated short film

A little girl suffers from an emotional wound. In her imagination, the “wound” takes on a life of its own, in the form of a shaggy creature that becomes her best friend. They grow up together and, firmly ensconced in the mind of the girl, the wound starts to control her life completely. Based on impressions from the author's own childhood, the starting point for the film was the creation of a shaggy black creature, The Wound, which increasingly gains presence and becomes the girl's closest companion. This animation portrays the relationship between the girl and the wound in pictures that are simultaneously both nightmarish and hauntingly beautiful.