‘Trash’ Wins Student BAFTA Award for Animation

French animation and visual effects school ESMA (École Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques) and the creative team behind Trash are celebrating the short’s prestigious win of the 2025 BAFTA Student Film Award for Animation. The awards were presented June 13 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in a ceremony in Los Angeles.

Now in its 21st year, the winners in six categories of the Student BAFTAs were selected from more than 1,000 submissions representing 154 schools across 39 countries. The full list of winners is available here.

Directed by Gregory Bouzid, Maxime Crançon, Robin Delaporte, Matteo Durand, Romain Fleischer, Alexis Le Ral, Margaux Lutz and Fanny Vecchie, and produced in collaboration with ESMA, Trash is a six-minute animated short with a de-structured visual style, following the frantic chase of a rat and a pigeon through the alleys and crumbling buildings of a decaying city.

The Student BAFTA joins several notable awards already collected by Trash, including the Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at Cinequest, Best of Fest at the Melbourne International Animation Festival and Best Student Short Film at Animayo. The winning filmmakers were awarded $2,500 in honor of BAFTA board member and children’s TV veteran Linda Kahn, who passed away in 2021, courtesy of King Features.

“We are truly honored by this recognition from BAFTA, and deeply grateful to ESMA for their ongoing support. This award is a meaningful reflection of the entire team’s hard work and dedication, ”said co-director Vecchie.

Isabelle Teissedre, Pedagogical Director at ESMA, added, “Receiving a BAFTA is an exceptional honor. This recognition marks a significant milestone and encourages us to continue our mission: to guide our students and nurture our teaching approach based on authenticity, promoting stories that are sincere, bold and heartfelt. We are proud of our students!”

Trash was one of three Animation finalists this year, competing with A Sparrow’s Song from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Germany (director: Tobias Eckerlin), and The Shyness of Trees from Gobelins in France (directors:Sofiia Chuikovska, Loïck Du Plessis D’Argentré, Lina Han, Simin He, Jiaxin Huang, Maud Le Bras and Bingqing Shu).

The Student BAFTAs also recognize young creators’ achievements in Games and Immersive projects. This year’s Games category went to Atan from Breda University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands and Free Will from University of Southern California in a tie win; Valfreyja from ISART Digital in France was the third finalist. The Immersive prize went to Pieces from The Steve Tisch School of Film & TV Tel Aviv University, Israel; the other finalists were A Perfect Day from University College London and The Cuban Freedom Flights from the University of Miami.

ESMA specializes in instructing students in the art and technical master of 3D animation and visual effects, offering courses at locations across France — Montpellier, Toulouse, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes, Bordeaux — and in Montreal, Canada. Learn more at esma-3d.fr.