Uncle Thomas, Klaus, I Lost My Body Win at the Annie Awards 2020

Uncle Thomas, Klaus, I Lost My Body Win at the Annie Awards 2020

During the 47th Annie Awards ceremony, Frank Gladstone, ASIFA-Hollywood's Executive director, described the mandate for the association which organizes the Annie Awards "as a sort of United Nations of Animation". This comparison certainly applies to the 2020 edition. Not only the Annie Awards received nearly 2,000 submissions worldwide, but many worthy  non-US studio submission were actually nominated for an award (and a handful of them won).

This news outlet had already noticed when nominations were announced that it would be the year when Europeans take over the Annie Awards. So, it was no surprise to see a Portuguese/French/Canadian film by Regina Pessoa, Uncle Thomas, Accounting for the Days, taking home the Best Animated Short Subject, out of 5 European nominated films in the category.

All nomiinees for the Best Animated Short Subject: (from left to right) Luce Grosjean (representing Osman Cerfon), Alexandre Siqueira, Regina Pessoa, Thomas Renoldner, and Tomek Popakul

It was also a welcome surprise when the Oscar-nominated 3D animation feature I Lost My Body by Jérémy Clapin won not just Best Animated Feature – Independent award, but also two other Annie awards,  Music in an Animated Feature (Dan Levy) and Writing in an Animated Feature (Jérémy Clapin, Guillaume Larent).



The big winner was another Netflix film, the Oscar-nominated Klaus by Spanish director Sergio Pablos, which took home 7 Annie Awards, including the award for Best Animated Feature. The fact that Klaus beat traditional DreamWorks and Disney rivals (also with Love, Death and Robots victory) says a lot about how Netflix has now firmly positioned itself in the animated circuit.

Michelle Chua and Aileen Dewhurst  (Sheridan College) won Best Student Short for The Fox and the Pigeon:

The Annie Awards have certainly re-defined themselves in recent years with small, but perceptible moves. The introduction of Best Independent Animation Feature in the Annie Award categories, and the more internationally balanced selection of nominees in the shorts categories (it started out already with last year's nominees) have made the awards a more faithful account of what's best in independent animation than the corresponding Oscar nominees list. 

Τhe full line-up of the 47th Annie Awards winners:

Best Animated Feature: Klaus (Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Best Animated Feature – Independent: I Lost My Body (Xilam / Netflix)
Best Animated Special Production: How to Train Your Dragon Homecoming (DreamWorks Animation)
Best Animated Short Subject: Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days (Ciclope Filmes, National Film Board of Canada, Les Armateurs)
Best Virtual Reality Production: Bonfire (Baobab Studios)
Best Animated Television/Media Commercial: The Mystical Journey of Jimmy Page’s ’59 Telecaster (Nexus Studios)
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Preschool Children: Ask The Storybots, “Why Do We Have to Recycle?” (JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix)
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Children: Mickey Mouse, “Carried Away” (Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel)
Best General Audience Animated Television/Media Production: BoJack Horseman, “The New Client” (Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix)
Best Student Film: The Fox & The Pigeon, Michelle Chua (Sheridan College)
Animated Effects in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots, “The Secret War”, Viktor Németh, Szabolcs Illés, Ádám Sipos, Vladimir Zhovna (Blur for Netflix)
Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production: Frozen 2, Benjamin Fiske, Alex Moaveni, Jesse Erickson, Dimitre Berberov, Kee Nam Suong (Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production: His Dark Materials Ep. 7, Aulo Licinio (Character: lorek) (BBC Studios)
Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Martins (Character: Alva) (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Character Animation in a Live Action Production: Avengers: Endgame, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Sam Sharplin, Keven Norris, Tim Teramoto, Jacob Luamanuvae-Su’a (Weta Digital)
Character Animation in a Video Game: Unruly Heroes, Sebastien Parodi (Characters: Heroes Kid version, Underworld NPC), Nicolas Leger (Characters: Wukong, Kihong, Sandmonk, Sanzang, Enemies and cinematics) (Magic Design Studios)
Character Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: Carmen Sandiego “The Chasing Paper Caper”, Keiko Murayama (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix)
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Torsten Schrank (Netflix Presents a Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Directing in an Animated Television/Media Production: Mickey Mouse “For Whom the Booth Tolls”, Alonso Ramirez Ramos (Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel)
Directing in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Pablos (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Music in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “Sonnie’s Edge”, Rob Cairns (Blur for Netflix)
Music in an Animated Feature Production: I Lost My Body, Dan Levy (Xilam for Netflix)
Production Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “The Witness”, Alberto Mielgo (Blur for Netflix)
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Szymon Biernacki, Marcin Jakubowski (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Storyboarding in an AnimatedTelevision/Media Production: Carmen Sandiego “Becoming Carmen Sandiego, Part 1”, Kenny Park (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix)
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Pablos (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Media Production: Bob’s Burgers “Roamin’ Bob-iday”, H. Jon Benjamin (Character: Bob) (20th Century FOX / Bento Box Entertainment)
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production: Frozen 2, Josh Gad (Character: Olaf) (Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production: Tuca & Bertie “The Jelly Lakes”, Shauna McGarry (Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix)
Writing in an Animated Feature Production: I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, Guillaume Laurant (Xilam for Netflix)
Editorial in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “Alternate Histories”, Bo Juhl, Stacy Auckland, Valerian Zamel (Blur for Netflix)
Editorial in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Pablo García Revert (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)

Three Winsor McCay Award recipients were selected by the ASIFA-Hollywood Board of Directors for their exemplary industry careers – Satoshi Kon (posthumously), Japanese manga artist, director, animator and screenwriter on the now classic films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo
Godfathers and Paprika; Henry Selick, stop motion director, producer and writer, best known for directing the stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline; and Ron Clements & John Musker, animators, animation directors, screenwriters, producers and one of Walt Disney Animation Studio's leading director teams with nearly 40 years of animation credits, from The Little Mermaid to Moana and many others, too numerous to mention.

The June Foray Award was presented to Jeanette Bonds, writer, independent animator, and co-founder and director of GLAS Animation; and the UbI werks Award was presented to Jim Blinn, computer scientist who first became widely known for his early work in computer animation, and as a graphics expert at  NASA's  Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (JPL), particularly on the pre-encounter animations for the  Voyager  project.

Watch the complete 47th Annie Awards Ceremony:

More on the official awards page

SIGN UP: Want to read more free articles like this? Sign up for Our Newsletter

Related Articles

Image

Zippy Frames is the premier online animation journal promoting European and Independent Animation animation since 2011

[email protected]

Zippy Frames

Quick Links