Awards Updates: ‘Flow’ Wins NYFCC & Nat’l Board of Review Awards, ‘Hadu’ Wins at AFRIFF, Saturn Awards Nominees & New Kids’ LGBTQ Media Awards

Tuesday morning’s New York Film Critics Circle Awards announcements kicked off with the reveal that Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow won the Best Animated Feature honor. The European co-pro, currently in theaters across the U.S. through Sideshow and Janus Films, is one of the 31 Academy Awards-eligible animated features this year, and is also Latvia’s entry for Best International Feature.

The pic additionally picked up the Best Animated Feature prize from the National Board of Review today (Wednesday), and the Latvian/Belgian/French production was also this week nominated for Best International Film by the Film Independent Spirit Awards, as an animated stand-out.

Flow follows the journey of a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage and wits to survive the perils of a newly aquatic planet.

On Wednesday, nominations for the 52nd Saturn Awards were announced. The honors have been presented each year since 1972 by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, and will be celebrated at an awards ceremony on Feb. 2 in Los Angeles (streaming live on ElectricNOW and The Roku Channel).

The full list of nominations can be found at saturnawards.org.

Best Animated Film:

• The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS)
• Despicable Me 4 (Universal/Illumination Entertainment)
• Inside Out 2 (Pixar/Walt Disney Studios)
• Kung-Fu Panda 4 (Universal/DreamWorks Animation)
• Spy x Family Code: White (Crunchyroll)
• Transformers: One (Paramount Pictures)
• The Wild Robot (Universal/DreamWorks Animation)

Best Visual/Special Effects:

• Alien: Romulus (TBD) (20th Century Studios)
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Angus Bickerton, James Brennan-Craddock, Neal Scanlan, Stefano Pepin) (Warner Bros. Pictures)
• Deadpool & Wolverine (TBD) (Marvel/Walt Disney Pictures)
• Dune: Part Two (Paul Lambert, Stephen James, Rhys Salacombe, Gerd Nefzer) (Warner Bros. Pictures)
• Godzilla Minus One (Masaki Takahashi, Tatsuiji Nojima, Kiyokk Shubuya, Takashi Yamazaki) (Toho International)
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Erik Winquist, TBD) (20th Century Studios)
• Twisters (TBD) (Universal Pictures)

Best Animated Television Series:

• Batman: Caped Crusader (Prime Video)
• Gremlins: The Wild Batch (Max)
• Kaiju No. 8 (Crunchyroll)
• Star Trek: Lower Decks  (Paramount+/CBS Studios)
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+/Lucasfilm)
• X-Men ’97 (Disney+/Marvel Studios)

Across the world, Lagos-based Smids Animation Studios (smidsstudios.com) is celebrating its prestigious win at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) — the continent’s largest cinema competition. The studio’s film Hadu was distinguished with the Shorts Prize for Best Animation.

Directed by Smids CEO & Creative Director Damilola Solesi, Hadu is a non-dialog 2D short which explores themes of family, joy and African culture. The film centers on Simi, a young girl who reconnects with her roots by bonding with her grandmother over preparations for a traditional meal.

The short has also been awarded Best Animated Short at the Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Festival and screened at the Academy Award-qualifying Cinanima fest in Portugal, among other global engagements.

We also got news this week that a brand-new awards program, The Velmas, is being launched this season as the flagship initiative of newly established organization The Rainbow Project (therainbowproject.tv). In line with the org’s mission, these prizes will recognize children’s and family media that amplifies queer voices.

“The Velmas are designed to recognize the incredible work happening in kids and family programming that goes beyond tokenism and authentically portrays LGBTQ+ characters and stories,” said Chris Nee, creator of award-winning animated series such as Doc McStuffins, who co-founded TRP with fellow industry vets Kristi Reed and Jeremy Blacklow. “We believe that every child deserves to see their truth reflected in the media they consume, and The Velmas will honor the brave individuals who are leading the charge in changing the cultural narrative.”