Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury clinches top prize in Annecy

Scroll down for full list of winners

Brazilian director Luiz Bolognesi’s Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury has won the top Crystal prize for best feature-length animation at the 37th Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The film, produced by Buriti Filmes and Gullane, captures four distinct periods in Brazilian history through a central protagonist who lives for 600 years.

Rio 2096 is the first Latin American film to win the top prize at the lakeside festival at the foot of the French Alps.

Also in the feature-length category, French Marc Boréal and Thibaut Chatel’s My Mommy is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill was granted a special mention.

Spanish Fernando Cortizo Rodriguez’s stop motion film The Apostle won the Audience Award.

Shorts

The Crystal prize for best short film went to Oscar-winning Canadian Chris Landreth’s Subconscious Password about the misadventure of a friendly man who meets up with an acquaintance whose name completely escapes him.

Landreth is best known for works such as Bingo and Ryan, which won the Academy Award for best animated short in 2004.

Television

The Crystal for best television production went to Jan Lachauer and Max Lang’s adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s modern children’s classic Room on the Broom.

Produced by Martin Pope and Michael Rose’s of London-based Magic Light Pictures, it draws together the same team that made animated adaptations of The Gruffalo and the The Gruffalo’s Child.

Premiering on the BBC on Christmas Day last year, the film’s voice cast featured Simon Pegg, Rob Brydon, Martin Clunes, David Walliams and Gillian Anderson.

The Crystal for best-commissioned film was won by Australian Julian Frost’s Dumb Ways to Die – an amusing health and safety film commissioned by the Melbourne public transport network featuring a series of characters who die in ridiculous ways including on the train tracks.

This year’s edition marked the first year for Canadian Marcel Jean at the helm of the festival as artistic director.

In another change, the event was also displaced from its traditional home of the Bonlieu cultural centre, which is currently being refurbished, and spread across a number of makeshift locations throughout the lakeside city.

In total, 236 works were screened out of a total of 2,460 submitted.

Aside from the competitive sections, event screenings included the French premieres of Monsters University, Oggy and the Cockroaches the Movie and Despicable Me 2.

Walt Disney Animation Studios also unveiled a previously unseen black-and-white short Get a Horse featuring Walt Disney as the voice of its animated star Mickey Mouse.

The festival’s Mifa market, meanwhile, registered 2,400 accredited attendees, 454 stands and 340 distributors and investors from 80 countries.

Annecy has set the next edition of the festival for June 9-14, 2014.

Full list of winners

The Crystal for best feature
Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury by Luiz Bolognesi

The Crystal for best short
Subconscious Password by Chris Landreth (Canada), prod. Copper Heart Entertainment

The Crystal for best TV production
Room on the Broom by Jan Lachauer, Max Lang

The Crystal for best commissioned film
Dumb Ways to Die by Julian Frost

Special Mention in feature length category
My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill by Marc Boréal and Thibaut Chatel

Audience Award
The Apostle by Fernando Cortizo Rodriguez

SHORTS PRIZES

Special Jury Prize
The Wound by Anna Budanova

Mention for first film
Trespass by Paul Wenninger

Prix “Jean-Luc Xiberras” for first work
Norman by Robbe Vervaeke

Special Mention
The Triangle Affair by Andres Tenusaar

Prix Sacem for Original Music
Lonely Bones by Rosto

Youth Jury Prize for short film
Feral by Daniel Sousa

Audience Award
Lettres de femmes, by Augusto Zanovello