The festival introduced a new distribution award, the Di Award, which guarantees the short will be screened before every cinemas screening Film Europe production. The prize went to the Slovak animated short The Story of a Tornado, which is the pilot film of a new TV series for Slovak TV. Along with the festival’s awards, a three member jury also selected films for their personal special mention awards.
The festival’s most impressive achievement was its leap from an intimate young niche fest to a meeting point for industry, with three days of meetings that brought animators together with the film industry, public TV, and the gaming industry. The inclusion of the latter was an inspired move to connect animators and game developers, a sometimes overlapping group. No surprise then that the game industry presentations were given to a room full of young men listening to a presentation from Game Spot’s (www.facebook.com.GameSpotSK) Filip Fischer on development and fundraising.
Observers agreed that Fest Anca is poised to become a leading film festival in Slovakia. A sign of its growing professionalism was visible in a meeting of animation film festivals from the CEE and Balkan region discussing possibilities for future cooperation as well as a presentation by festival logistics coordination company Eventival.
The complete list of awards follows:
Anča Award – Coda, dir. Alan Holly (Ireland)
Anča Student Award – Somewhere, dir. Nicolas Ménard (UK)
Personal Special Mention of:
Max Hattler - To Thy Heart, dir. Ewa Borysewicz (Poland)
Peter Badač - Choir Tour, dir. Edmunds Jansons (Latvia)
Michael Frei – Maman, dir. Ugo Bienvenu and Kevin Manach (France)
Student special mention:
The Incredible Elastic Man, dir. Karolina Specht (Poland)
Anča Music Video Award:
Benjael Halfmaderholz for Mañana Forever (Germany)
Music video special mention:
Best Friend, dir. Kijek & Adamski (Poland)
We've Been Lovin, dir. Gavin C Robinson (UK)
Anča Children Award:
Us, dir. Ulrich Totier (France)
Anča Slovak Award:
Joanna Kożuch - Fongopolis
Slovak special mention:
Kamila Kučíková - In Line
Di Award:
The Story of a Tornado, dir. Veronika Kocourkova (Slovakia)
