Winners of the Hamburg Animation Award announced

With 239 entries received this year from 118 schools in 39 countries, the Hamburg Animation Award is gaining a strong international reputation. Now in its 11th year, the award attracted not only students from Europe, but also some from Asia, North and South America, and Australia. The 18 films that made it onto the short list competed in the categories of “shorts”, “advertising” and “games”. “The elements that count are style and story,” says Eva Hubert, head of the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, whose input helped Hamburg to become the town for animation in the German film industry. 

The Harald Siepermann Character Design Prize is named after the late Hamburg-based Disney character designer Harald Siepermann, who had been head of the jury and a teacher at the Animation School Hamburg for many years. This special award went to the students from the French animation school ESRA for their short film Emile, about a neurotic man who goes to see a shrink in order find a way back to a normal life.

A real crowd pleaser was the short film Jinxy Jenkins, Lucky Lou, in which an exceedingly unlucky boy meets a lucky girl with a sunny disposition. Directed by Michael Bidinger, Michelle Kwon and Sarah Kambara, from the Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida, the colourful action-comedy project won the trophy for the Best Short as well as the Audience Award.

For the first time, the Hamburg Animation Award was given out for an animated advertising spot. The prize went to the experimental Frenki, which a student team from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg created for the whisky brand Johnnie Walker. Meanwhile, the Games Animation Award stayed in Hamburg: the trophy was handed over to five students from a design college based in the city, where they created the entertaining game Scherbenwerk – Bruchteil einer Ewigkeit.