ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the presenters for Saturday’s 45th Annie Awards at UCLA’s Royce Hall. These include actress Wendie Malick, Coco star Anthony Gonzalez (voice of Miguel), director Nora Twomey and actress Saara Chaudry of The Breadwinner, Disney voice talent Russi Taylor, SpongeBob star Tom Kenny, animators Mark Henn and Floyd Norman, and industry notables such as Debi Derryberry and E.G. Daily.
The Annie Awards will be streamed live on February 3 starting at 7 p.m. PST at http://annieawards.org/watch-it-live/.
Honoring overall excellence as well as individual achievement, the Annie Awards celebrate the year’s best in feature film, television, commercial, short subject and other animation sectors with a total of 36 award categories. This year’s Best Animated Feature nominees are Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (DreamWorks Animation), Cars 3 (Pixar Animation Studios), Coco (Pixar Animation Studios), Despicable Me 3 (Illumination Entertainment) and The Boss Baby (DreamWorks Animation). The Independent movie nominees are In This Corner of the World (Taro Maki, GENCO, Inc. and Masao Maruyama, MAPPA Co., Ltd.), Loving Vincent (BreakThru Films, Trademark Films), Napping Princess (Nippon TV), and The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales (Folivari, Panique!, Studiocanal).
More nomination info here, or visit www.annieawards.org/nominees for the complete list (including individual achievement categories).
“This year, besides our tremendous slate of awards and honors, we will be dedicating the ceremony to our beloved June Foray,” remarked Frank Gladstone, ASIFA-Hollywood’s executive director. “More than anyone else, June was responsible for founding the Annies 45 years ago. This will be the first year she is not going to be with us, so we will do our best to remember and celebrate June’s creativity, generosity and unrelenting advocacy for the animation community.”
Special Juried Awards for 2018 are:
The Winsor McCay Award for career contributions to the art of animation – British character animator James Baxter; SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg; Canadian animation duo Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis.
The Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancement that has made a significant impact on the art and industry of animation: TVPaint 2D animation software.
The June Foray Award for significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation: Animation historian Didier Ghez.
Special Achievement Award: Studio MDHR Entertainment 1930s animation-inspired for video game Cuphead.
Certificate of Merit: David Nimitz, June Foray’s devoted friend and caretaker.
