Winners for the 2017 Fantoche International Animation Film Festival were announced over the weekend, with this year’s competition having received a formidable 26,300 submissions — an 11% increase over the previous record number in 2015. The six-day event attracted talented filmmakers, special guests and animation fans from across Switzerland and around the world to the scenic river valley city of Baden.
This year’s Best Film Award went to Niki Lindroth von Bahr for her magnetic, musical stop-motion short The Burden (read more in the October issue of Animation Magazine, No. 273), while Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata’s Negative Space took the Audience Award. In the national contest, Michaela Müller’s Airport was judged the best Swiss film. Joan Zhonga’s Ethnophobia won over both the special children’s jury (seven kids ages 6-12) and the tyke attendees at large to take both the Best Kids and Young Audience Awards. Kilian Vilim’s OOZE also scored a double win with the Fantastic Swiss and Swiss Youth Awards.
Programming highlights for Fantoche 2017 included 300-plus shorts and features — including sold-out showings of Loving Vincent, In This Corner of the World and Louise en Hiver; exhibitions with VR/AR components, industry talks and workshops. Michael Dudok de Wit gave an enlightening masterclass, and best practices were explained by Feitag.lab.ag and Blue Zoo experts. There was also great interest in the UK country focus “Brexit: Goodbye to All That?,” and the themed event/exhibition tracks “3 Generations: Cinema, TV, Web” and “Animation Goes Multimedia.”
The next edition of Fantoch is set for September 4-9, 2018.
Fantoche 2017 Award Winners:
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Jury: Anete Melece, Fabian Erlinghäuser, Jayne Pilling, Sonja Rohleder, Daniel Sciboz
Best Film: The Burden, Niki Lindroth von Bahr (Sweden, 2017)
High Risk: Vilaine fille, Ayce Kartal (France, 2017)
New Talent: Ugly, Nikita Diakur (Germany, 2017)
Best Sound: Impossible Figures and Other Stories II, Marta Pajek (Poland, 2016)
Special Mention: Nachtstück, Anne Breymann (Germany, 2016)
Audience Award: Negative Space, Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata (France. 2017)
SWISS COMPETITION
Jury: Igor Prassel, Yvonne Van Ulden, Theodore Ushev
Kids’ Jury: Lausanne: Sunshine Burri, Maryam Sunitha Sangaré. Tessin: Alessandra Guastalla, Jie Gabriella Liu, Robin Pellanda, Amaury Szöke. Wettingen: Ursina Bill, Mathilde Dam Hansen
Best Swiss: Airport, Michaela Müller (Switzerland/Croatia, 2017)
High Swiss Risk: Living Like Heta, Bianca Caderas, Isabella Luu & Kerstin Zemp (2017) New Swiss Talent: Immersion, Lalita Brunner (2016)
Fantastic Swiss: OOZE, Kilian Vilim (2017)
Swiss Youth Award: OOZE, Kilian Vilim (2017)
Special Mention: La bataille de San Romano, Georges Schwizgebel (2017)
Swiss Audience Award: In a Nutshell, Fabio Friedli (2017)
KIDS FILM COMPETITION
Kids Jury: Supervised by Zauberlaterne, the films were judged by a jury of seven children aged between 6 and 12 which awarded the Best Kids prize.
Best Kids: Ethnophobia, Joan Zhonga (Albania/Greece, 2016)
Young Audience Award: Ethnophobia, Joan Zhonga (Albania/Greece, 2016)
