Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 23, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
To date, the five jury members Prof. Albrecht Ade, founder of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg; Prof. Andreas Hykade of Kassel University of Art and Design; filmmaker Jan Peter Meier; Prof. Christina Schindler of HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg; and ITFS artistic director Ulrich Wegenast have viewed a total of 547 films for the International Competition at the 16th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, compared with 487 in the previous year. Most of the films came from China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Iran, Canada, Russia, Hungary and the United States. Any animated film up to 35 minutes long that was produced in 2007 or 2008 is eligible for the International Competition, the festival’s category with the highest prize money. The following awards are presented: the Grand Prix, the major animation award of the state of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart (€15,000); the International Promotional Award for the best graduation film (€10,000); the SWR Audience Award (€6,000); and Music for Animation, the GEMA Foundation Award (€5,000).
“The spectrum of animated worlds has expanded again: exciting hybrid forms incorporating live-action footage, CG productions whose artistic treatment makes their origins unrecognizable, and animated documentaries have characterized recent production years. They also address socially relevant subjects, demonstrating that animated film is a ‘boundless’ medium whose potential still remains to be explored,” explains jury member Prof. Christina Schindler.
Submissions to the Young Animation student-film competition are also strong, with 672 titles compared with 637 the previous year. Any animated film by students and graduates of film and art schools and other educational institutions is eligible for Young Animation, whose preselection was completed on December 11. Films may not exceed 35 minutes and must have been produced between 2007 and 2008. The preselection jury consisted of animation filmmaker Ged Haney, 3D artist Egmont Mayer and animation legend Franz Winzentsen.
With 160 films, the number of submissions to this year’s Tricks for Kids section remained stable compared with the previous year. Tricks for Kids presents sophisticated and entertaining current animated films for children. The €4,000 prize, sponsored by the television channel NICK, is awarded to the best children’s animated film.
“One notable change this year was that we received fewer submissions from Asia but more from North America. Thematic focuses continue to include the classic fields of fairy tales and myths, often enriched with aspects of morality and proper behavior. Technically, we can observe a renaissance of stop-motion and cutout animation,” says Benjamin Manns, an SWR Kindernetz editor who served on the preselection jury alongside Iris Loos of VHS Stuttgart’s children’s course program, NICK Vice President Oliver Schablitzki and producer Thomas Schneider-Trumpp.
Preselection for the Animated Series, AniMovie, Under Commission and Animation Screenplay Award competitions will be completed at the end of January 2009. ITFS organizers expect more than 1,800 submissions across all competitions.
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