Norway’s 2022 Fredrikstad Animation Festival came to a conclusion this weekend, celebrating the year’s best in Nordic-Baltic animation at the FAF Award Ceremony held at Quality Hotel. The redesigned FAF Award statuette was bestowed on deserving winners across shorts, features, commissioned films, student films and projects aimed at younger audiences.
This year’s Grand Prix for best short film went to Estonian director Sander Joon’s Sierra, which has already qualified for the 2023 Academy Awards. Based on the director’s own childhood and incorporating vintage stop-motion animation created by his father 40 years ago, the film is a black comedy in which a man’s obsession with rally racing turns his kid into a car tire. Joon and producer Aurelia Aasa accepted the award via video, donning some Sierra-inspired AR headgear.
Best Feature Film was awarded to Signe Baumane’s meditation on the romantic expectations forced on girls and women, My Love Affair with Marriage (Latvia/U.S./Luxembourg). Best Short was awarded to another exploration of modern relationships: I’ll Be Your Kettle by Tobias Rud, in which a woman desperately tries to keep up with her partner’s unusual desires.
Three juries of international industry professionals were tasked with selecting the 2022 award winners:
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- The short film jury selecting the award winners for Grand Prix, Best Short Film and Best Student Film is Ida Melum, Gísli Darri Halldórsson and Aneta Ozorek.
- The award winner for Best Feature Film was selected by Johan Edström, Maria Anestopoulou and Maria Mac Dalland.
- For Best Commissioned Film the jury selecting the award winner is Tobias Rud, Katz Plunkett and Jens Jonathan Gulliksen.
In addition to the professional jury, FAF also had a children’s jury for Best Children’s Film. And, new this year, the Young Audience program had its own jury of children aged 12-15.
And of course, the Audience Award winner was determined by festivalgoers.
FAF 2022 Winners
Grand Prix
Sierra | Director: Sander Joon
Jury statement: “It’s not often that we experience such a supersonic and bombastic film about family dynamics. This short is told with clarity, visual nerve, and energy. Thank you for the ride, Sander.”
Audience Award
The Harbormaster (Havnesjefen) | Dir.: Mia Ludvigsen Henriksen & Konrad Hjemli
Best Short Film
I’ll Be Your Kettle | Dir.: Tobias Rud
Jury statement: “You will appreciate this film if you are compulsively trying to fix your relationships by becoming an electrical appliance. The jury enjoyed this lighthearted and surreal short about the serious struggles of codependency. The whimsical design fits the tone of the film perfectly.”
Best Student Film
Cowboy Kevin | Dir.: Anna Lund Konnerup
Jury statement: “It’s not easy to talk about love, and it’s even harder to not become sentimental and cheesy when doing so. The director of the winning film succeeded in telling a playful, sincere and perfectly paced love story, elevated by a remarkable voice acting performance.”
Best Commissioned Film
Toleransevinduet | Dir.: Julia Torjak
Jury statement: “After a lot of deliberation, we have landed on Toleransevinduet [The Tolerance Window]. This is a film that approaches its subject with clarity and is at eye level with its target audience. It is a stylistically confident film with a very appealing design.”
Special Mention Commissioned Film
Black Midi “Welcome to Hell” | Dir.: Gustaf Holtenäs & Sevi Iko Dømochevsky
Jury statement: “Special mention goes to ‘Welcome to Hell’ -Black Midi. It was cool and beautifully chaotic and it was so nice to see music videos entered in the selection.”
Best Feature Film
My Love Affair with Marriage | Dir.: Signe Baumane
Jury statement: “This very unique animated film, where myths & symbols confront neurology and hormones, succeeds in a very bold way to transform a personal to a universal story.”
Best Children ́s Film
Tales of Zale – Flickering Lights | Dir.: Sif Savery
Jury statement: “This year’s best children’s film is awesome, amazing. The plot and drawings were very nice.”
Special Mention Children’s Film
Hjemme Hos Sinna (At Home with Sinna) | Dir.: Tommy Vad Funderud & Markus Vad Flaaten
Jury statement: “Another film we really liked was Hjemme Hos Sinna. It was good, funny and a little weird.”
Best Young Audience Film
Troublemaker Tommy | Dir.: Rao Heidmets & Pauline Heidmets
Jury statement: “This year’s best youth film is charming with great music. Childish, but fun.”
Special Mention Young Audience Film
Bear Hug | Dir.: Margrethe Danielsen
Jury statement: “Another good film on the program is Bear Hug. Very good animation with an unexpectedly good plot twist.”
Lifetime Achievement Award
Heikki Prepula, born in 1939 in Finland, started his career in animation in 1965. In Finland, animation has historically been small-scale and individualistic, as in Norway and the other Nordic countries. But in the 1960s and 1970s, cut-out animation had its heyday in public television, and Prepula and others produced imaginative works for children’s programs.
Prepula started out worked for TV, making long animated serial films for children. Later, he started to produce his own independent short films and has made a total of 29 through his career, producing, directing, writing, designing and animating them himself. Prepula has also drawn numerous illustrations and cartoons for books and magazines, publishing about 4,700 artworks and 360 cartoons.
Kössi the Kangaroo is Prepula’s most popular character, and is considered a classic of Finnish animation. Prepula’s linear, two-dimensional drawings have been screened at festivals around the world. Some of his best known shorts, like The Locomotive(1978), The Turnip (1982), The Magic Hat (1987) and The Flying Pig (1994), have won great popularity in France and his films has even been screened at Centre Charles Pompidou.
Prepula continues to influence younger generations in Finland, notably the Helsinki-based studio Haruworks.
For more information about the Fredrikstad Animation Festival, visit animationfestival.no.
