The 2024 Palm Springs International ShortFest announced its juried and audience award winners at an Awards Brunch held at the Renaissance Hotel Palm Springs. Awards and cash prizes worth $25,000 — including five Academy Award-qualifying awards — were presented to the winners. The festival’s 30th edition took place June 18-24, screening 310 short films in the Official Selection.
The winner of the Oscar-qualifying Best Animated Short (including a $1,000 cash prize) is The Car That Came Back from the Sea (Switzerland), directed by Jadwiga Kowalska. Distributed by Miyu, the film won both the Jury Prize and the France Televisions Prize for short form at the recent Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Full of exuberance and frivolousness, six friends drive to the Polish Baltic coast and back in a small, dented car. During their trip, their car and their country fall apart. Nevertheless, life goes on. Their journey is interfused with memories and snapshots from the past.
A Special Mention for this category was awarded to Wander to Wonder(Netherlands/France/Belgium/U.K.) by Nina Gantz, which did take home the Best Midnight Short award ($1,000 cash prize), for the best of the festival’s absurd and surreal late-night program.
The juried award for Best Student Animated Short was given to On the 8th Day by Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne, Flavie Carin and Théo Duhautois, fifth-year students from the Piktura school in Roubaix, France (formerly known as Pôle 3D). Utilizing woven yarn-textured 3D CGI, the film’s mesage is that “it took seven days to create the world, it only took one to disrupt its balance.”
The Special Mention for student animation recognized the stop-motion short Bug Diner by Phoebe Jane Hart, created at CalArts (U.S.)
In the Local Jury Awards section, the Kids’ Choice Award ($1,000 cash prize) was bestowed on Mog’s Christmas, the latest hand-drawn digital holiday special from Lupus Films in the U.K. Directed by Robin Shaw (We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, The Tiger Who Came to Tea), the short is based on Judith Kerr.’s books about a mischievous cat.
Mog feels a little ignored during the Thomas family’s Christmas preparations. When she spots the huge Christmas tree, she freaks out and climbs to the roof, where she refuses to move no matter how hard the family tries.
The Special Mention went to Shellfish (Coquille) from Justine Aubert, Cassandra Bouton, Grégoire Callies, Maud Chesneau, Anna Danton, Loic Girault, Gatien Peyrude and Justine Raux, 3D animation students at ESMA (France). Watch the teaser here.
Finally, the Audience Award for Best Animated Short ($600 cash prize) went to another U.K. project, And Granny Would Dance by Maryam Mohajer. The short centers on a little girl named Marmar who listens to the stories told by her grandmother’s friends over an illicit game of cards.
Inspired by the director’s childhood memories and shared stories, the film celebrates the solidarity of Iranian women through a story of love, grief and resilience. The 2024 production was supported by the BFI Short Form Animation Fund, Animate Projects. And Granny Would Dance made its world premiere at ShortFest.
See the full list of ShortFest winners here. Learn more about the festival and related events at psfilmfest.org/shortfest-2024.
