Georges Schwizgebel Gets 2020 Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award
Swiss master of animation Georges Schwizgebel, the most awarded author in the history of Animafest Zagreb with seven awards and three special mentions, is the winner of 30th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Animafest Council. decided on the award, pointed out that the Award is given to "one of the most important contemporary masters of animation. The founder of the GDS production studio (where he also pursues design) and a winner of many international awards, this great artist has often collaborated with Canadian producers (NFB) and is particularly esteemed for his painting on glass technique work.
Next to classical and modern painting, he is very much inspired by music, literature and mythology and he imbues his narrative and lyrical elements with an inclination towards the poetics of experimentalism. Georges Schwizgebel’s most famous works clearly illustrate why he is called a master of ‘animated painting’, as they are often based on the elegance of line and movement, and films like L'année du daim / The Year of the Deer, 1995, Fugue, 1998, La jeune fille et les nuages / The Young Girl and the Clouds, 2001, L'Homme sans ombre/ The Man With no Shadow, 2004, Jeu, 2006, Romance, 2011 or Le Roi des Aulnes – Erlkönig / The King of fairies, despite mutual differences, point to the idiosyncratic power of Schwizgebel’s unforgettable poetic visions."
Erlkönig
Georges Schwizgebel will receive the Animafest Lifetime Achievement Award in person at the opening ceremony of the 30th World Festival of Animated Film on 8 June 2020. Suzan Pitt was awarded the same award in the 2019 edition.
A full retrospective of George Schwizgebel's work was curated during the 2010 Animafest Zagreb programme.
The 30th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb takes place 8-13 June 2020.