Winners of the 38th Goya Awards (Premios Goya, premiosgoya.com) were announced this weekend, marking the highlight of the Spanish cinema awards calendar. While the night’s biggest success was J.A. Bayona’s disaster drama Society of the Snow, which won 12 awards out of 13 nominations — including Best Special Effects — the golden animated feature honor went to Robot Dreams. Writer-director Pablo Berger was also honored with the best adapted screenplay award. The film was also nominated for Best Original Music and Best Editing.
The Best Animated Short Film award went to To Bird or Not to Bird directed by Martín Romer, produced by Chelo Loureiro and Iván Miñambres.
Based on the graphic novel by American cartoonist Sara Varon, the non-dialog, 2D story of the unlikely friendship between a dog and his robot companion in 1980s New York City is produced by Arcadia Motion Pictures (Spain), Noodles Production (France), Les Films du Worso (France), the Spanish public television service RTVE and platform Movistar Plus+. NEON will bring Robot Dreams to U.S. theaters soon.
Friday also saw the announcement of the 28th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards (adg.org), presented by the Art Directors Guild. The award for Animated Feature Film went to Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (production designer Patrick O’Keefe).
The highly acclaimed Marvel movie, a sequel to the Oscar-winning 2018 sensation Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, was up against The Boy and the Heron, Elemental, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA, aacta.org) announced the full list of AACTA Award winners, including the AACTA International Awards and public-voted Audience Choice Awards.
Scoring a tail-wagging victory for Australian toons was the global hit Bluey from Ludo Studio / ABC, which won the Best Children’s Program award for Joe Brumm, Charlie Aspinwall, Sam Moor and Daley Pearson. The popular puppy was up against charming puppetry series Beep and Mort (Windmill Pictures/ABC) and live-action series Barrumbi Kids, Crazy Fun Park, The PM’s Daughter and Turn Up the Volume.
Beep and Mort, which debuted in 2022 and is based on Windmill’s theatrical show, was also nominated for Best Production Design in Television (Jonathon Oxlade).
The 46th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (clermont-filmfest.org) wrapped up last week with a closing awards ceremony.
Notable animated winners include Karni & Saul’s Wild Summon (U.K.), which was awarded the LAB Audience Prize, and 27 (France/Hungary), which snagged the Best Original Score honor for Rozi Mákó and Mári Mako; the short is directed by Flóra Anna Buda
The Oscar-qualifying New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF, nyicff.org) announces its complete feature film slate for 2024, which will see North America’s largest young audiences fest return to NYC from March 2-17 in venues across Manhattan and Brooklyn. The animated feature films screening this year are:
- Centerpiece Spotlight: Chicken for Linda! (France — East Coast Premiere) | Sébastien Laudenbach & Chiara Malta
- The Concierge (Japan — New York Premiere) | Yoshimi Itazu
- Double Bill:
- Magic Candies (Japan — WORLD PREMIERE) | Daisuke Nishio
- The Klutzy Witch: Fuka and the Witch of Darkness (Japan — North American Premiere) | Takayuki Hamana
- Dounia – The Great White North (Canada — U.S. Premiere) | André Kadi & Marya Zarif
- Kensuke’s Kingdom (U.K., Luxembourg, France — New York Premiere) | Neil Boyle & Kirk Hendry
- Moominvalley (U.K. — North American Theatrical Premiere) | Jay Grace & Darren Robbie
- Puffin Rock and the New Friends (Ireland — North American Premiere) | Jeremy Purcell
- Robot Dreams (Spain, France) | Pablo Berger
