The winners of the awards of 13th Animation Film Festival Animated Dreams were announced on Saturday, 19th of November at the award ceremony in Sõprus Cinema, Tallinn. The Grand Prix winner, a recipient of the Wooden Wolf made by Estonian puppet experts from the Nukufilm studio alongside 1000 euros, was the film The External World (Germany 2010, Dir. David O’Reilly)

Chosen by an international jury made up of Anna Solanas (Spain), Nobuaki Doi (Japan) and Andres Mänd (Estonia), the film is an aggressive and confrontational comedy that satirises notions of bad taste and the reality within which animation works. The film also picked up the audience award. Other awards went to Metachaos (Italy 2010, Dir. Alessandro Bavari) for Best Design whilst Estonia’s own Ülo Pikkov won the award for Best Story with Body Memory (Estonia 2011, Dir: Ülo Pikkov). The ‘Brain Tap’ award – given by students of Estonian Academy of Arts’ and inspired by the Animated Dreams logo – was won by Stones (Slovakia 2010, Dir.Katarina Kerekesova)
The ceremony concluded a hugely successful festival which saw audiences from Estonia and beyond enjoy a packed programme of shorts and features. This year also saw the first AnimaCampus Tallinn which saw more than 100 participants – amongst them numerous young animators - from across the globe come to Tallinn to take part in lectures, presentations and workshops. With the opportunity to network, meet their peers and engage with some of the best new national and international animations, the event gave all who participated the chance to develop their craft over the years to come.
The manager of Animated Dreams and AnimaCampus Mark Kuslapuu said:
“This year’s festival has been an amazing success and cements our status as the biggest animation festival in the Baltic and Nordic regions. As always, we’re grateful to the sponsors, audiences and filmmakers who make it all happen. Alongside the great films, we’re glad that AnimaCampus Tallinn got off to such a great start. We really feel that we’re offering a great chance for a new generation of young animators to learn more about their chosen career and we look forward for the event going from strength to strength over the coming years.”
Full information about the Animated Dreams programme can be found at www.anima.ee or via Facbook at http://www.facebook.com/animateddreams
Animated Dreams is a sub-festival of the Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) which also encompasses a main programme of feature premieres and retrospectives.
PÖFF and AnimaCampus Tallinn are part of the Tallinn – European Capital of Culture 2011 programme.