After much anticipation, the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF; September 21-25) has unveiled its Animated Shorts Competition as the Festival continues its selections rollout. After receiving 2,168 sumissions this year, OIAF has selected 51 shorts for the official competition across four categories, to be judged by Marko Tadic, Terril Calder and Jonni Philllips.
- 14 Student animated shorts
- 18 Narrative animated shorts
- 8 Non-Narrative animated shorts
- 11 Commissioned animated shorts
“Pandemic and Convoys be damned!” says OIAF Artistic Director Chris Robinson. “OIAF 2022 returns to in-person shenanigans with yet another tray of provocative, befuddling, hilarious and heart-swirling animation films that deal with war, female desire, functional and dysfunctional families, backflips and the long-awaited meeting of two great ducks: Donald and Daffy.”
The nude stop motion animation of Gina Kamentsky’s Sed Saepe Cadendo is as unforgettable as it is captivating. Peixuan Cheng’s Being Sisyphus for one second a day is an explicit but brutally honest account of living through 2021. Emma Calder’s Beware of Trains explores the current cultural obsession with fear, while Sam Mason’s work for the post-mortem release of Mac Miller’s “Colors and Shapes” takes audiences on a trip alongside a dog modelled off of the late Miller’s very own canine companion. Recent award winners at Annecy and Zagreb, The Garbage Man and Amok, respectively join the competition categories for Narrative and Non-Narrative animated shorts.
In addition to determining the winner of the Grand Prize and the winners of the Shorts Competition categories, Tadic, Calder and Phillips will select the winners of the OIAF Shorts competition craft prizes for best script, technique, sound and design.
The OIAF is on the festival qualifying list of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which allows the OIAF Grand Prize winner in the Shorts Competition to bypass the usual qualification process for the Oscars.
All winners receive an award statue designed by Ottawa-based, scrap metal artist Tick Tock Tom. The statues are working phénakisticopes that feature animations by New York artist George Griffin.
Short Film Competition
Narrative
- 100 Miles, Louis Bodart, Canada
- Amok, Balázs Turai, Hungary & Romania
- Backflip, Nikita Diakur, Germany
- Beware of Trains, Emma Calder, United Kingdom
- Bird in the Peninsula, Atsushi Wada, France & Japan
- Dealing with War, Andreas Hykade, Germany
- Drone, Sean Buckelew, United States
- Hotel Kalura, Sophie Koko Gate, United Kingdom
- Koerkorter (Dog Apartment), Priit Tender, Estonia
- Letter to a Pig, Tal Kantor, France & Israel
- Lucky Man, Claude Luyet, Switzerland
- O Homem do Lixo (The Garbage Man), Laura Gonçalves, Portugal
- Sierra, Sander Joon, Estonia
- The Debutante, Elizabeth Hobbs, United Kingdom
- The Flying Sailor, Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis, Canada
- The Loach, Xi Chen & Xu An, China
- The Record, Jonathan Laskar, Switzerland
- Triangle noir (Triangle of Darkness), Marie-Noëlle Moreau Robidas, Canada
Non-Narrative
- 11, Vuk Jevremovic, Croatia & Germany
- CUBER, Vince Collins, United States
- Donald Daffy, Peter Millard, United Kingdom
- Iizuna Fair, Sumito Sakakibara, Japan
- Intermission, Réka Bucsi, Hungary
- Sed Saepe Cadendo, Gina Kamentsky, United States
- The Hour Coat, Amy Kravitz, United States
- Yin Mu (Silver Cave), Caibei Cai, China
Commissioned
- 25 years, Kang Min Kim, South Korea & United States
- Animal Collective – “We Go Back”, Winston Hacking & Michael Enzbrunner, United States & Canada
- “Can’t negotiate the melting point of ice”, Yannis Konstantinidis & Marcos Savignano, United Kingdom
- Cuco – “Caution”, Cole Kush & Christopher Rutledge
- Mac Miller – “Colors and Shapes”, Sam Mason, United States
- Online Business, “Downright Suspicious”, Momoka Watanabe, Japan
- Pharell Williams – “Cash In Cash Out”, François Rousselet, United States & France
- “PSSY”, Nayon Cho & Simon Wilches Castro, United States
- “Save Ralph”, Dan Streit, United Kingdom & United States
- “The Cosmophones”, Kerwin Frost, Dan Streit, United States
- TVFCU – “A Place For All of Us”, Dale Hayward & Sylvie Trouvé, Canada & United States
Student
- & MORE, Tsz-wing Ho, Hong Kong SAR China
- 99¢ Pizza, Lucas Ansel, United States
- Above the clouds, Vivien Hárshegyi, Hungary
- Before Her Body Left, Yuxin Yang, China
- Being Sisyphus for one second a day, Peixuan Cheng, China
- Carlos Montaña, Ita Romero, Argentina
- KLIMAX, Bea Hoeller, Germany
- La bride (the dogs leash), Nicolas Piret, Belgium
- Les larmes de la Seine (The Seine’s tears), Yanis Belaid, Eliott Benard, Nicolas Mayeur, Etienne Moulin, Hadrien Pinot, Lisa Vicente, Philippine Singer & Alice Letailleur, France
- Mountain Blues, Lucie Levrangi, United Kingdom
- Slouch, Michael Bohnenstingl, Germany
- The Pattern, Péter Bogyó, Hungary
- Vampire, Xian Zhong, Taiwan & United Kingdom
- Zoon, Jonatan Schwenk, Germany
OIAF is one of the world’s leading animation events providing screenings, exhibits, workshops and entertainment since 1976. Attracting artists, producers, students and animation fans from around the globe, the OIAF brings together art and industry to experience world-class animated works. This year’s OIAF runs from September 21 to September 25. Visit the OIAF website for more information about this year’s festival.
