VIEW Award Animation Competition Winners Announced

VIEW Conference announces the VIEW 2024 Award Winners. An 11-member international jury selected the outstanding short animated films based on story, direction, technical proficiency, sound and uniqueness. The nine winning entries employed a variety of techniques, including 3D CG, stop-motion and 2D animation.

“We had so many wonderful entries, we couldn’t help but give more awards than usual this year,” said Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez, VIEW conference director, “and Adobe and Pixar Animation Studios, who kindly provided prizes for the award winners, agreed.”

The Grand Prize went to director Amanda Strong for her NFB-backed short Įk’ǫǫ̀: Inkwo for When the Starving Return. The director employed multiple animation techniques to adapt a short story by First Nation descendant Richard Van Camp. In the story, a young, enigmatic, genderfluid warrior faced with internal struggles and external threats must forge their identity while taking a stand to defend the remaining humans and animals on Earth.

Jury members called Inkwo beautiful in all aspects; technical, narratively and visually. They noted how the mastery required to blend different colors and backgrounds as the film moved between animation styles through a different versions of the story and backstory. Jurors commented, “I love this film. The story flows. It was so immersive. Of all the films we saw, this one stayed with me. I still see scenes in my head.”

And the winners are…

Grand Prize (2,000 euros)

• Įk’ǫǫ̀: Inkwo for When the Starving Return | Director: Amanda Strong | Production: Spotted Fawn Productions, National Film Board of Canada

Jury Awards (RenderMan licenses)

• Have I Swallowed Your Dreams | Director: Clara Chan | Production: Flying Dumpling Films
• Jour de Vent | Directors: Martin Chailloux, Ai Kim Crespin, Elise Golfouse, Chloé Lab, Hugo Taillez, Camille Truding | École des Nouvelles Images (ENSI)

Best Student Film (Adobe Creative Cloud licenses)

• Sortie de Route | Directors: Alice Beneux, Victoria Demonin, Laura LeBaillif, Zohra Lecointre, Camille Maniffatore, Nathan Mathieu, Noemie Thiallier | École des Nouvelles Images (ENSI)
• Le Charade | Director: Erika Totoro | Savannah College of Art and Design
• Le Cantique des Moutons (The Song of the Sheep) | Directors: Jules Marcel, Anaïs Castro de Angel, Juliette Bigo, Evan Lambert, Alex Le Ruyet, Jeanne Bigo, Anaïs Ledoux | Supinfocom RUBIKA

Special Achievement Awards (RenderMan licenses)

• Amen | Directors: Orphee Coutier, Bettina Demarty, Kimié Maingonnat, Laurène Perego, Louise Poulain, Avril Zundel | École des Nouvelles Images (ENSI)
• Freak of Nature | Director: Alexandra Lermer | Nuremberg Institute of Technology (Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm)

ItalianMix Award (Adobe Creative Cloud license)

• Impossible Maladies | Director: Alice Tambellini |  SenZa TesTa Productions

“Director Amanda Strong’s Grand Prize-winning film Įk’ǫǫ̀: Inkwo for When the Starving Return immersed us in a mesmerizing tale of courage, identity, and the enduring power of truth. Our Jury Award winners brought us a personal relationship between an immigrant mother and daughter (Have I Swallowed Your Dream) and the poetic juxtaposition of many lives (Jour de Vent),” Dr. Gutierrez says.

“The three award-winning student films showed the range of stories animation can tell.  For Sortie de Route, students used 3D tools to tell a painterly story of a woman, her dog, and a frog. Le Charade‘s director crafted a lonely mime with stop-motion tools, and 3D tools also helped students tell a darkly humorous story of a drunk and his sheep.”

VIEW Conference 2025 will be held October 12-17 in Turin, Italy; registration is now open at viewconference.it. 

Submissions are also open for the next edition of VIEW Award (closing September 20, 2025). More information is available here.