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Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window Anime Film Wins Award at Annecy
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail stop-motion film from Australia won the top Cristal for a Feature Film award. Gintz Zilbalodis' Flow Latvia-Belgium-France co-production won the Jury Award, Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, Audience Award, and Best Original Music Award for a Feature Film.
The other anime that competed in the feature film category included Ghost Cat Anzu, The Colors Within, and The Imaginary.
The Birth of Kitarō: The Mystery of Gegege (Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo) anime film competed in the Feature Films Contrechamp category, but Living Large won.
Pokémon Concierge and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead competed in the TV Films category but neither won awards.
Akihito Izuhara's "Kawauso" and "Miserable Miracle" — a joint-production between studios from Japan, France, and Canada — competed in the Short Films category, but neither won awards.
Masataka Kihara's "Yapolaponky" and Lindong Chen's "Return" competed in the Graduation Films category, but did not win any awards.
Oscar-nominated director Koji Yamamura's short "My Inner Ear Quartet" competed in the VR Works category. "Gargoyle Doyle" won the Cristal for the Best VR Work.
Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window is Shinei Animation's anime film of Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's Madoigwa no Totto-chan autobiographical memoir. The film opened in Japan on December 8. Kuroyanagi's memoir tells her story of going to school at Tomoe Gakuen, after not fitting at her original elementary school. She meets unique students and learns new things at school, even as Japan descends into war. Kuroyanagi published the book in Japan in 1981, where it became a bestseller over the next year. It became required reading for Japanese elementary school students in the 1980s, and was also translated in English and many other languages worldwide.
Last year, Tomohisa Taguchi's The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes, the anime film of Mei Hachimoku and Kukka's Natsu e no Tunnel, Sayonara no Deguchi young adult novel, won the Paul Grimault Award.
This year's Annecy took place from June 9-15 in the French town of the same name. Established in 1960, Annecy is the world's oldest and largest animation film festival.
Next year, the country of honor for the festival will be Hungary.
