Animation First Announces Competition Winners

The Animation First festival is held annually by The French Institute Alliance Française in New York. The festival is returning for the seventh year, and is the U.S.'s first festival dedicated to celebrating the legacy and innovation of Francophone animation. This year the festival included screenings of sci-fi film Mars Express, Oscar nominee Robot Dreams, and When Adam Changes, as well as talks, work-in-progress sessions, and first looks. The festival also screened an extensive selection of shorts including a program of Francophone shorts, Best Of Annecy, Cinémathèque Québécoise, National Film Board Of Canada (NFB) Shorts and the US & French Student Short Film Competition.

FIAF has announced the winners of the Francophone Shorts and Student Film competitions. The winners were announced just before the closing night film of the six-day festival on Sunday, January 28.

FRANCOPHONE SHORTS 2024 WINNERS

Best Francophone Short 2024: The Purple Season (La saison pourpre). Dir. Clémence Bouchereau

Honorable Mention: Maurice’s Bar. Dir. Tom Prezman, Tzor Edery

Honorable Mention: Summer 96 (Été 96). Dir. Mathilde Bédouet

The Francophone shorts jury included illustrator Marcos Chin, curator Marco de Blois, and filmmaker Candy Kugel. All new French language shorts screened at Animation First were eligible. The films are selected from sources such as Annecy, Anima—The Brussels Animation Film Festival, and Les sommets du cinéma d’animation. The shorts are curated by Michael Enright and AF Curators Chloé Dheu and Delphine Selles-Alvarez.

ANIMATION FIRST STUDENT SHORT FILM COMPETITION 2024 WINNERS:

Best French Student Short: Fire, from students at the Ecole des Nouvelles Images. Esther Lamassoure, Baptiste Fraboul, Florent Sabuco, Julie Le Forban, Valentin Serre, Léna Gittler

Best American Student Short: The Sun is Bad, from students at SCAD. Chenrui Lan, Elle Yeung, Henry Ni, Ivan Chui, Laura Correal, Liren Sun, Quinn Marsh, Rachel Mow, Rielle Yap Ong, Samson Flanagan

Honorary Mention for American Short: *Dance with the Seashells!*, from Students from Gobelins. Théo Carme, Julie Fournier, Alessandra Rosmarino, Anaëlle Saba.

The Student Film Competition Jury is made up of students from the participating schools which include Gobelins, l’École de l’Image (Paris, France), RUBIKA (Valenciennes, France), Ecole des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation (Angoulême, France), École des Nouvelles Images (Avignon, France), California Institute of the Arts (California, USA), Savannah College of Art and Design (Georgia, USA), School of Visual Arts (New York, USA), and University of Southern California (California, USA).

Grouped into two programs- one featuring the French films and one featuring

the American ones, the student films will be available to view online on Eventive from Monday, January 29–Monday, February 12, along with the entries into this year's Animation Jam competition.

The Student Jury is presided over by DreamWorks animator Kristof Serrand. The winners will receive a one-on-one session with Serrand to discuss their work and receive his advice.