The Ottawa Animation Festival releases its official list of feature films in competition that includes Annecy 2024 Cristal Award winner ‘Memoir of a Snail,’ Jury Award winner ‘Flow,’ and the Contrechamp Grand Prix winner ‘El sueño de la Sultana;’ the event runs September 25-29.
The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) has revealed seven animated feature films selected for this year’s Official Competition. In addition to competitions, the event boasts screenings, exhibits, and workshops and brings together artists, producers, students, and animation fans from around the globe to experience world-class animated works. This year’s OIAF runs September 25-29.
The selected features represent both emerging and established animators from the international festival circuit. The films compete for the Grand Prize for Feature Animation, with the winner chosen during the festival by a jury that includes Neil Hunter (Canada), Dahee Jeong (South Korea), and Thomas Volda (Croatia).
“It’s remarkable to see how diverse and interesting feature animation has grown, especially with this year’s competition being one of the strongest we’ve had in years,” said OIAF artistic director Chris Robinson. “We’ve got a handful of lesser-known gems that are sure to travel the festival circuit (the astonishing Olivia & The Clouds, the mysterious Journey of Shadows, and the hypnotic weirdness of Boys Go to Jupiter) alongside a trip of films that have already been recognized globally (Flow, Sultana’s Dream and Memoir of a Snail).”
The 2024 Features Competition includes:
- Boys Go to Jupiter (dir. Julian Glander, United States)
- El sueño de la Sultana (Sultana’s Dream) (dir. Isabel Herguera, Spain, Germany, and India)
- Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, and France)
- Memoir of a Snail (dir. Adam Elliot, Australia)
- Olivia & Las Nubes (Olivia & the Clouds) (dir. Tomás Pichardo Espaillat, Dominican Republic)
- Reise der Schatten (Journey of Shadows) (dir. Yves Netzhammer, Switzerland)
- Sunburnt Unicorn (dir. Nick Johnson, Canada)
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Elliot’s most recent film, the stop-motion animated Memoir of a Snail premiered at Annecy 2024 last month, walking away with the event’s Cristal Award for Feature Film. The film features the voices of Sarah Snook (Succession, The Dressmaker), Kodi Smit-McPhee (ParaNorman, Let Me In), and Magda Szubanski (Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two).
Flow, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, won the Annecy International Animation Film Festival Jury Award, the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, the Audience Award, and the Best Original Music Award for a Feature Film. The feminist sci-fi short story inspired El sueño de la Sultana (Sultana’s Dream) also received recognition at Annecy 2024 with the Contrechamp Grand Prix and at Animafest Zagreb 2024 won the Grand Prix.
Johnson’s Sunburnt Unicorn, an adventurous coming-of-age tale features the lyric-less musical score of Yellowknife-born sisters Inuksuk Mackay and Tiffany Ayalik, known as the duo PIQSIQ.
Olivia & Las Nubes (Olivia & the Clouds) will have its world premiere at OIAF, with Reise der Schatten (Journey of Shadows) and Boys Go to Jupiter making their respective Canadian debuts.
Additional information for this year’s edition is available on the OIAF website.
Source: OIAF 2024
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
