TWO AWARDS FOR POPAKUL’S ANIMATION

Although a few months passed since "Ziegenort" celebrated its premiere screening at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the 19 minutes long animation by Tomasz Popakul keeps on receiving invitations and awards at film festivals around the world. Last week the award at the Brooklyn Film Festival and Hamburg Short Film Festival again proved its popularity.

Brooklin Film Festival is one of the important American festivals, that apart from the feature lenght films screens also short ones. The festival is recognized both by American and British Film Academy. This year among 85 short films presented in the official competitive line up there were as many as five Polish films - apart from the awarded animation by Popakul also documentary "Rogalik" by Paweł Ziemilski and "Exit point" by Jagoda Szelc, fiction "Watermelon" by Tato Kotetishvili and animated "Railway watchman" by Piotr Szczepanowicz.

On the last festival's day, the jury of the short film competition announced this year's laureates. The award for the Best Animated Film was presented to Tomasz Popakul and his "Ziegenort". The total sum of awards at this year's Brooklin Film Festival reached 50,000 dollars. The 16th edition of Brooklyn Film Festival was held between 31st May and 9th  June.

The second award was handed over to Popakul at the German Hamburg Short Film Festival. “Ziegenort” was programmed as one of the forty films selected from over 2,200 entries. At the German festival films are screened and judged in five competitive cathegories such as 3-minutes Quickie or No Budget Films to name a couple. At the closing gala the special arte-Shortfilm Award went to Tomasz Popakul for his “Ziegenort”. This is the fifth festival, after German Oberhausen, Czech Visegrad Animation Forum, Polish Krakow Film Festival and American Brooklyn Film Festival that awards the animation by Popakul. On awarding “Ziegenort” the representatives of French broadcaster arte gave the following explanation: The young and talented Polish director Tomasz Popakul makes you want to fade into a different world where everything seems possible and likely to fail at the same time. The 29th edition of the festival was held between 4th and 10th June.

“Ziegenort” is a story of Fish Boy - a teenager facing the challenges of growing up. His problems are especially severe, as he is different from all others: He is half boy, half fish. His drama is set against the background of a seemingly idyllic fishing village, where is father wants to teach him how to become a fisherman. The boy‘s struggle with the stigma of rejection takes place in several dimensions of interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, it also affects Fish Boy‘s relationship with himself.

This is Popakul's graduation film made by the NoLabel studio based in Krakow. Tomasz Popakul graduated from Animation at the Polish National Film School in Łódź. He currently works for NoLabel.

More on both festivals can be found at their official websites - www.brooklynfilmfestival.org and  www.shortfilm.com