On October 8, the LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival announced the winners of three competition programmes: International Competition, Ukrainian Competition and Commissioned Films Competition.
In the largest International Competition section, 42 talented works competed for the main prize. The winners were chosen by Marta Pajek, a Polish animation director whose work has received numerous awards; Abigail Addison, a British producer of innovative animated films; and Pedro Serrazina, an award-winning Portuguese director.
The Grand Prix of the LINOLEUM 2023 festival went to Hungarian-born director Flóra Anna Buda for her animated film "27". It’s the story of a 27-year-old girl who still lives with her parents and tends to live in her dreams to escape her dreary everyday life. After a psychedelic party on a factory roof, she has a serious drunken bike accident. Will this give her the courage to become an adult?
The jury members praised this work for "a daring, honest and intimate portrait of a young woman, entangled in her own erotic fantasies whilst frustratedly searching for a space to be herself. With exquisite design sensibilities and a rapturous, pulsating score, this truly is an accomplished work.”
This is not the first serious achievement for the author. Last summer, Flóra Anna Buda received the prestigious Annecy Cristal and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for the same film in May.
Three more films received Special Mentions from the jury. Thus, for "a delicate demonstration of life as a single, middle-aged woman. Nienke’s distinctive, transparent sheet stop motion technique and sophisticated characterisation and storytelling,” the Special Mention from Abigail Addison went to “The Miracle” by Nienke Deutz (Belgium).
Marta Pajek singled out “Family Portrait” by Lea Vidakovic (Croatia) for its "atmospheric end-of-an-epoch portrait of a family, sensually animated, woven from unspoken words, gestures, light and detail.”
Pedro Serrazina praised Margot Reumont's "Cuddle" (Belgium) for its "delicate graphic style, elegant sound design, and the use of subtle but sensual animation morphs that helped to achieve a refined balance between the tender recollection of growing up and the disturbing impact of sexual abuse.”
The Commissioned Films Competition was judged by Oksana Kurmaz, an award-winning illustrator and animation director, commissioned by OWSLA, Elohim ft. Skrillex, Okean Elzy, Alina Pash, TEDx; Dante Zaballa, an animator from Argentina; Pablo Ballarin, animation director from Spain and participant in many international festivals.
The Award for the Best Film in the Commissioned Films Competition went to the work "All the Best" by Argentinian director Pablo Rafael Roldán because "this music video captures the essence of childhood's joy and imaginative wonder combining ingenious camera movements, wobbly lines and psychedelic elements.” The director dedicated his work to all those who were told they were weird or were made to feel that way.
The film "Ride on Joyfulness" (Lei Lei, China) received a Special Mention for "an original perspective in the approach to commercial animation and for creating a distinctive new universe with its own laws and existential emotions.”
The animated film "Mariupol. A Hundred Nights" by Sofiia Melnyk won in the Ukrainian Competition. It tells the story of a little girl who wakes up on February 24th because of the explosions and tries to find someone living in the burning city. The jury members were impressed and awarded it for “a strong combination of image and music, rich artistic choices, and an original way of storytelling.”
"Morrow" by Vladyslav Kalenskyy received a Special Mention for "an original approach to the tragedy of war that still leaves hope, holding the viewer in a tense atmosphere during the whole timing, and balancing on the verge of reality and dream, life and death.”
The best films in the national competition were chosen by Oleh Malamuzh (producer and animator, director of the feature film The Stolen Princess and co-director of Mavka. The Forest Song), Piotr Kardas (initiator and director of the O!PLA Animation Film Festival) and Agnė Adomėnė (Founder and Producer of ART SHOT Production Company, Board Member of The Lithuanian Animation Association).
Sofiia Melnyk has also received a special prize for her film about Mariupol - a Wacom Intuos Pro S tablet from the partner of the LINOLEUM festival, Novella Ltd. (Wacom's official distributor in Ukraine).
The festival’s educational partner, Projector – Creative & Tech Online Institute, awarded Anastasiia Tiahun, a participant of the New Faces block (a programme for young and promising authors), with a certificate for free participation in the Storyboarding course.
Overall, it was a jam-packed and fruitful period of five days. Seven blocks of competition and 17 special screenings, thematic selections and non-competition programmes, 15 lectures and workshops and hundreds of animation films from all over the world.
We are sincerely grateful to our guests, speakers of educational programmes, and partners for their support and help in holding the festival!
The LINOLEUM 2023 festival is supported by the USAID Competitive Economy of Ukraine (USAID CEP) program. It is funded by the Stabilisation Fund for Culture and Education of the German Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut. The International Competition programme is organised with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.
Main partner: UNIT.City
Educational partner: Projector — Creative & Tech Online Institute
Publishing partner: ArtHuss Publishing House
Festival partners:Festival partners: Official Wacom monobrand store in Ukraine wacomstore.com.ua, Novella Ltd. — Wacom's official distributor in Ukraine, Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre
Media partners: Telegraf, Marie Claire, #ProShoKino.
