Nicolas P. Villarreal’s Nieta (“Granddaughter”) was awarded the Best Short Film honors by the Young People’s Jury at the TIFF Kids festival in Toronto. The film was singled out from over 100 shorts by jurors aged 9 to 13 and celebrated at an awards ceremony on April 19.
The non-dialog, five-minute film was inspired by a photograph Villarreal found of his mother as a child, standing with her father. An emotional tale of a young girl’s relationship with her grandfather is rendered with vivid color in a blend of traditional animation and CGI. “I’ve always enjoyed using my childhood memories as a platform for my storytelling and will continue to do the same on our next project, the animated feature film, The Aces,” he said.
Villarreal is a native of Argentina and the co-founder of Red Clover Studios. He is also the director of the Academy of Art University’s School of Visual Development in San Francisco, which he has headed since the school’s inception. He graduated with an MFA in Illustration from the university in 2002.
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