The French film project Allah is Not Obliged won the jury’s main award in the feature film category, along with a prize of 1,000 EUR. Hungary took the TV series award with the project The Cat Princess and a 1,000 EUR prize. The Short Film award went to the Latvian sand animation project Kafka in Love, also accompanied by a 1,000 prize, directed by Zane Oborenko and produced by Sabine Andersone.
A record number of applicants applied for the forum, leading to an overall high quality of projects selected for pitching.
The forum was also the conclusion of the first CEE Animation Workshop, which held its third six-day module in Trebon in the days before the pitching sessions began. Thirteen teams of filmmakers were recognised at the closing ceremony. Another project under the organiser’s umbrella, CEE Animation Talents, presented the first screening of a selection of short films which will travel to partner festivals.
EAVE presented a scholarship to the five-day EAVE Marketing Workshop to the Romanian producer Ioana Lascar of deFilm with the Romanian/Moldavian project Viskovitz directed by Serghei Chiviriga.
Animation Sans Frontieres presented a scholarship to The European Animation Development Lab to Croatian director Lea Vidakovic for The Family Portrait produced by Draško Ivezić for Adriatic Animation.
Warsaw Kids Film Forum offered attendance to the three-day event to the German TV series project The Very Hairy Alphabet directed by Eliza Plocieniak-Alvarez and produced by Laura Messner
The new Pop Up Film Residency prize of a three-week residency went to the Irish film project Piece directed by Alan Holly and produced by Ciarán Deeney and Carla Vulipiani. The project also won the Special Mention in the Feature Film category.
The CEE Animation Workshop Scholarship Award went to Vessela Dantcheva, producer of the Bulgarian short film project Where To produced by Compote Collective and directed by Asparuh Petrov.
The Anomalia Scholarship Award invited the directing/producing team behind the Serbian/Canadian feature film project Twice Upon a Time, Vojin Vasovic and Milorad Kocić of To Blink Animation to attend a two-week character design workshop taking place in Prague. The feature film project also won the Nespresso Audience Award.
The main awards were:
Short Film Award:
Kafka in Love (Latvia)
Directed by Zane Oborenko
Produced by Sabine Andersone, Atom Art
Series / TV Special Special Mention:
Grandma’s Pond (Germany)
Directed by Friedrich Schäper
Produced by Ivan Zuber, Antoine Liétout, Friedrich Schäper
Series / TV Special Award:
The Cat Princess (Hungary)
Directed by Iván Tamás
Produced by Bálint Gelley
Feature Film Jury Special Mention:
Piece (Ireland)
Directed by Alan Holly
Produced by Ciarán Deeney, Carla Vulipiani
Feature Film Award:
Allah is Not Obliged (France)
Directed by Zaven Najjar
Produced by Sébastien Onomo
