Manchester Animation Fest Film & Industry Awards Announced

The 2018 Manchester Animation Festival, the U.K.’s largest dedicated animation event, wrapped up Thursday night with an awards ceremony celebrating the best films of the fest, as well as this year’s winners of the Industry Excellence Awards. Nienke Deutz’s stop-motion coming-of-age piece about best friends spending the last summer of their childhood together, Bloeistraat 11, won Best Short Film. And the rebooted stop-motion series The Clangers scored a double win in the IEAs, for Scriptwriting and Character Animation.

Learn more about MAF at www.manchesteranimaitonfestival.co.uk.

MAF 2018 Awards:

Best Short Film: Bloeistraat 11 by Nienke Deutz (France)
Special Mention: Egg by Martina Scarpelli (France)
Audience Award: Facing It by Sam Gainsborough (U.K.)
Best Commissioned Film: Mark of a Free Society by Robert Grieves (U.K.)
Best Student Film: Travelogue Tel Aviv by Samuel Patthey (Switzerland)
Student Film Special Mention: Somewhere Soft by Satoe Yoshinari (Norway)
Best Immersive Film: Back to the Moon by FX Goby & Helen LeRoux (U.S.)

MAF 2018 Industry Excellence Awards:

Storyboarding
Oriol Vidal for Danger Mouse: A Fear to Remember
Krystal Georgiou for Luo Bao Bei: Footsteps of Others
WINNER: Vince James for 70 MPH Tales: Jack and the Beanstalk

Scriptwriting
Evgenia Golubeva and Myles McLeod for Becca’s Bunch: Cute Lil’ Bug
Alex Collier for Danger Mouse: Grand Stressed Auto
WINNER: Daniel Postgate for The Clangers: The Block

Character Animation
Duncan Rudd for Buy Any Part: Farmer
Mark Kilkelly for Danger Mouse
Rachel Thorn for Simon’s Cat: DIY
WINNER: Fabrice Pieton for The Clangers

Character Design
Eimhin McNamara for The Western Spring
Valentina Ventimiglia for Labuntina
Aoffe Doyle for Aurora
WINNER: Leigh Hodgkinson for Olobob Top

Manchester Animation Festival

The Clangers: The Block