Three Polish Animations: „The Lost Town of Świteź” by Kamil Polak, „Paths of Hate” by Damian Nenow and „Maska” by Quay Brothers were awarded in the category of short film at 35th International Animation Film Festival in French Annecy, that finished on 11th June.

“The Lost Town of Świteź” received the “Jean-Luc Xiberras” Award for a first film, “Paths of Hate” the Special Distinction while “Mask” a Sacem Award in recognition of Krzysztof Penderecki’s music.

The main prize – Annecy Cristal – in the short animation competition was handed over to French director Patrick Jean for his film “Pixels”.

This year there were precisely 42 films from all over the world competing for the main prize, among them six Polish titles: “The Lost Town of Świteź” by Kamil Polak, “Maska” by Quay Brothers, “Two steps behind..” by Paulina Majda, “Millhaven” by Bartek Kulas, “ Zbigniew’s Cupboard” by Magdalena Osińska, “Paths of Hate” by Damian Nenow and Polish-Norwegian coproduction “Pl.ink” directed by Anne Kristin Berg. Festival in Annecy is one of the most prestigious animation festivals worldwide that is of the same importance as Cannes when it comes to the author-driven cinema. For this year’s edition there were 172 animated films selected, shown in seven competition sections such as short film, TV series, TV special, educational, scientific or industrial film, advertising or promotional film, music video and graduate film. Besides the competitive sections the audience was given the opportunity to watch 35 short film animations in the out of competition screenings.

Along with the festival, the annual Mifa film marked took place, that gathered animation professionals – producers, cinema distributors, tv representatives from all over the world.

Up till now, there were over sixty Polish films that made their way to the competition at the Annecy festival. At the previous editions the awards went to: “Labirynth” by Jan Lenica, “Everything is a number” by Stefan Schabenbeck, “Cages” by Mirosław Kijowicz, “The Roll-Call” by Ryszard Czekała, “Och, och…“ by Bronisław Zeman, “Reflection” by Jerzy Kucia, “Tango” by Zbigniew Rybczyński, “Walls” by Piotr Dumała, “Chick” by Michał Socha and most recently ”Peter & the Wolf”by Suzie Templeton (Annecy Cristal 2007) to name just a few.

The animation “The Step” made by Piotr Kamler – recently awarded the Dragon of Dragons at 51^st Krakow Film Festival – in 1975 received festival’s Grand Prix and was acclaimed the film of the thirty years.

More information to be found at: www.annecy.org

Press release: PISF

JUNE 2011