Alain Andrieux

After four intensive days, the Animated Dreams Festival came to an end this Sunday in Tallinn, Estonia. Three french co-productions were in competition : "Man on the Chair" by Dahee Jeong (France/South Korea), "Limbo-Limbo Travel" by Zsuzsanna Kreif (France/Hungary) and "The Little Seed" by Chaïtane Conversat (France/Cook Islands). Three french short production were also competing for the award : "Celui qui mangera un œil de poisson" by Alice Saey, "Planet Z" by Momoko Seto and finally "Yul et le serpent" by Gabriel Harel.

For its 19th edition, the biggest eastern european animated film festival, introduced 4 programs in official competition, each one containing between eight and twelve international short movies, including among others, "We Can't Live Without Cosmos" by the russian director Konstantin Bronzit (winner of a Cristal for best animated short film in Annecy, 2015), "Footprints", directed by the american Bill Plympton (nominated for the Oscars 2015), "Life with Herman H. Rott", by the estonian Chintis Lundgren (special mention from the festival Anim'Est in Bucarest, 2015), "Pjano", by the estonian Kaspar Jancis (winner for best film and best screenplay at the Tofuzy festival in Georgia, 2015), "The Isle of Seals", by the latvian Edmunds Jansons (winner of the Special Jury Award of the festival from Montreal Les Sommets du Cinema d'Animation in 2014), or "Moon Blink", by the austrian Rainer Kohlberger (selected for the short film's Tiger Award at the IFFR in Rotterdam, 2015).

 

About twenty other outsanding short productions were screened off competition. Among them, "Utoe" by the german David Buob, "Punkt" directed by the estonian Kristjan Holm or "Face", a world premiere, from the latvian director Jurgis Krasons.

 

The international student competition presented two programs of twelve films each, among which: “Inwentors” directed by Kamila Kucikova(Slovakia), “Zoo” by Julian Gallese (Canada), “Velodrool” by Sander Jool (Estonia), “The Twilight Tour”, by Reza Riahi (France), “Loop Ring Chop Drink” by Nicolas  Ménard (France), “Something” by Elena Walf (Germany), or “Mrs Kabagodzilla” by Moe Koyano (Japan).

 

This colorful event was punctuated by a patchwork of other activities, including a retrospective of the work of the estonian animator Kalju KIVI, a whole program dedicated to the 30 past years of animation in Austria (ASIFA Austria 30), a reviewing of the georgian works and the screenings of off-competition animated feature films.

 

Many awards were handed over during the Closing Ceremony of Animated Dreams.

 

The Award for Best Picture – Student category, goes to Dina Velikovskaya (Russia) for “About a Mother”.

 

The Award for Best original Score goes to Jerzy KUCIA (Poland) for “Fugue for Cello, trumpet and landscape”.

 

The Award for Best Non Narrative Short Film goes to Paul BUSH (Switzerland) for “Five Minute Museum”.

 

Special Mentions were also given out by the three members of the Jury.

 

Tsvika OREN picked Riho UNT (Estonia) for “Island / The Master”, award winner of the Annecy Film Festival, 2015.

 

Kalju KIVI picked Ivan MAXIMOV (Russia) for ''Benches N°0458".

 

Emma DE SWAEF picked Don HERTZFELDT (USA) for “World of Tomorrow”, winner of thirty-eight prizes during this year festival marathon.

 

Finally, the Heino Pars Award was handed out to Daisy JACOBS (England) for “The Bigger Picture”. This prize pays tribute to the famous estonian animator Heino Pars who started his career in 1962 and passed away in 2014. His short animated film “Nail”, made in 1972, is one of his greatest work.

 

Click on the following link to get the Animated Dreams' program:

http://www/anima.ee/