The winners have been announced for the prestigious British Animation Awards 2024 (britishanimationawards.com) at a ceremony held at London’s BFI Southbank, presented by comedian Henning Wehn. Now in their 28th year, the BAAs celebrate one of the nation’s most successful creative industries with a biennial gala.
“As always we have been blown away by the quality of work produced by the British Animation industry over the last couple of years and would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners,” commented BAA Director Helen Brunsdon and Producer Kieran Argo.
The night’s big winner was Lupus Films’ hand-drawn animated feature film Kensuke’s Kingdom which triumphed in three categories including Best Feature, the Writers Award for Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Best Original Music for composer Stuart Hancock. Adapted from the classic adventure story by Michael Morpurgo and directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, the film, about a boy shipwrecked on a seemingly-deserted island, features the voices of Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe.
London-based animation studio Lupus Films was also successful in the Best Long Form category. Its Channel 4 hand-drawn animation adapted from Judith Kerr’s classic picture book Mog’s Christmas (directed by Robin Shaw) shared the honors with A Bear Called Wojtek, Iain Gardner’s film about Edinburgh Zoo’s famous brown bear who was adopted by Polish soldiers in WWII.
The Best Short Film category was won by Elizabeth Hobbs for The Debutante, a startlingly visual tale about a spirited young woman who persuades a hyena from London Zoo to take her place at a dinner dance held in her honor.
The ensemble cast of Sky Cinema’s The Amazing Maurice (directed by Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann) won the BAA for Best Voice Performance. The fantasy comedy based on the Terry Pratchett novel about a streetwise cat and his gang of rats features the voices of Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Hugh Bonneville, David Tennant and Ariyon Bakare.
Great British Bake Off’s promotional trailer for 2023 (directed by JuanPe Arroyo) proved to be a recipe for success in the Best Animation in a Commercial category, while rocking the Best Music Video Award was “Late Nights,” directed by Golden Wolf for Death by Romy and Adult Swim.
Channel 5 Milkshake!’s Odo, about a little owl with a big heart, flew off with two awards. Produced by Belfast-based Sixteen South, the series picked up the awards for Best Children’s Pre-School Series and Best Design. Meanwhile, the Best Children’s Series Award went to the hapless heroes from The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, directed by Edward Foster and produced by the Illuminated Film Company for ITV. The Best International Animated Series was awarded to Nickelodeon’s The Tiny Chef Show and Factory Create.
The awards themselves are unique, edition-numbered linocut/relief prints paying homage to Renaissance ‘Triumph’ pictures like Holbein’s 1533 artwork Triumph of Wealth and Mantegna’s 1484-1492 Triumphs of Caesar. Featuring some of the best-loved animation characters of the last 100 years, The Triumph of Animation awards were created by animator and artist Derek Hayes, senior lecturer Animation and FX at Falmouth University.
Additional category winners listed below. See the full list of 2024 nominees here.
Best Factual Award — Another Presence – Dir: Simon Ball
Best Undergraduate Film — Cortex – Dir: Sena Miyazaki
Best Postgraduate Film — The Wolf of Custer – Dir: Tanya J. Scott
Lamb Award — Malachi James – Blue Zoo
Children’s Choice — Dead End: Paranormal Park – Dir: Liz Whitaker
Cutting Edge — Beware of Trains – Dir: Emma Calder
Wildcard (awarded to animations of any durations deemed as ‘extraordinary’) — Two Gracious Uncles Smooched to the Beat – Dir: Jon Dunleavy
Social Good Award — Alzheimer’s Research UK “Change The Ending” – againstallodds
