The inaugural edition of Hiroshima Animation Season, a new animation festival in the Japanese port city, completed its five-day program with a closing ceremony on Sunday, August 21.
The first festival was a great success, welcoming many guests from Japan and abroad, and included competition screenings, feature screenings, talks by special guests, symposiums and other programs.
The awards ceremony for the competition was held at the closing ceremony, announcing the Grand Prix and other award-winning films. The competition received 2,149 entries from 86 countries and regions, 54 of which were selected for the two competitions (Pan Pacific and Asia Competition and World Competition).
The Grand Prix, chosen among the two competitions by the artistic directors from the festival (Koji Yamamura and Shizuka Miyazaki), went to Darwin’s Notebook, a short film by Swiss master filmmaker Georges Schwizgebel. The film depicts colonial
issues in a metamorphosis technique.
In the Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition, the Best Film was awarded to Los Huesos, directed by Cristobal León & Joaquin Cocina (Chile). The film was highly acclaimed for its strong social satire in the setting of an excavated 16mm film. The jury consisted of three acclaimed animation professionals: Florence Miailhe (France), Chris Robinson (Canada) and Joe Hsieh (Taiwan).
The winners of Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 are…
Mitsui Fudosan Realty Chugoku Presents Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 Competition
Grand Prix: Darwinʼs Notebook (Directed by Georges Schwizgebel / Switzerland)
Chosen by HAS artistic directors Koji Yamamura and Shizuka Miyazaki asthe film that best represents the festival from all award-winning films, including the audience awards in the Pacific and Asia Competition and the World Competition.
Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition
Jury Members: Florence Miailhe, Chris Robinson, Joe Hsieh
Best Film: Los Huesos (Directed by Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociñ / Chile)
Jury Personal Pick – Florence Miailhe: Bird in the Peninsula (Directed by Atsushi Wada / Japan)
Jury Personal Pick – Chris Robinson: The Loach (Directed by Chen Xi & An Xu / China)
Jury Personal Pick – Joe Hsieh: Bestia (Directed by Hugo Covarrubias / Chile)
Audience Award: Bird in the Peninsula (Directed by Atsushi Wada / Japan)
World Competition
In addition to the category awards and jury awards already announced at the opening ceremony on August 17, the audience awards were also announced for each category, which was voted on by the audience after viewing the films.
“Allegories Nowadays” Audience Award: Skinned (Directed by Joachim Hérissé / France)
- Category Award: Skinned
- Arthur Binard Award: Confessions of an English Ant-Eater (Alex Crumbie / United Kingdom)
- Hiroko Sebu Award: In the Mountains (Wally Chung / United States)
- Shizuka Miyazaki Award: Prince in a Pastry Shop (Katarzyna Agopsowicz / Poland)
“A Slice of Society” Audience Award: Precious (Directed by Paul Mas / France)
- Category Award: Salvia at Nine (Jang Nari / Korea)
- Kiki Sugino Award: The House of Loss (Jinkyu Jeon / Japan, Korea)
- Asako Fujioka Award: All Those Sensations in My Belly (Marko Dješka / Croatia)
- Honami Yano Award: Mom, Whatʼs Up with the Dog? (Lola Lefevre / France)
“Adventure in Storytelling” Audience Award: Darwinʼs Notebook (Directed by Georges Schwizgebel / Switzerland)
- Category Award: Darwinʼs Notebook
- Min Tanaka Award: The Blind Writer (Georges Sifianos / Greece)
- Yuki Harada Award: My Father’s Damn Camera (Milos Tomic / Slovenia)
- Sarina Nihei Award: In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-weeny Pocket (Yoko Yuki / Japan)
“Visual Poetry” Audience Award: Zoon (Directed by Jonatan Schwenk / Germany)
- Category Award: Archipel (Felix Dufour-Laperriere / Canada)
- Ma Jung-Yeon Award: Intermission (Réka Bucsi / Hungary)
- Daito Manabe Award: Clockwise (Toni Mitjanit / Spain)
- Koji Yamamura Award: Zoon (Jonatan Schwenk / Germany)
“The Spark: Films for Children” Audience Award: A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays (Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier / Belgium, France)
Special Jury Award
Feature Film Jury Award: When You Get to the Forest (Directed by Eric Power / United States)
Jury Members: Masashi Koide (Professor of Tokyo Zokei University), Akiko Sugawa (Professor of Yokohama National University, President of Japan Society for Animation Studies), Koji Takase (Animation Researcher and Critic), Mirai Mizue
(Animation Artist, President of Japan Animation Association)
Hiroshima Choice: A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays (Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier / Belgium, France)
Jury Members: Akiko Isonaga (freelance writer), Mitsuhiro Seimasa (READAN DEAT store owner), Takeshi Matsuoka (Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art)
HAC (Hiroshima Animation City) Award: A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays (Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier / Belgium, France)
The next Hiroshima Animation Season will be held in two years, in August 2024.
