New International Animation Festival "Hiroshima Animation Season 2022" Comes to a Close

The first edition of "Hiroshima Animation Season 2022," a new animation festival in Hiroshima, completed its five-day schedule with a closing ceremony on Sunday, August 21.

The festival ended with great success, welcoming many guests from Japan and abroad, and included competition screenings, feature screenings, talks by special guests, symposiums, and other programs.

The award ceremony for the competition was held at the closing ceremony and the Grand Prix and other award-winning films were announced. The competition received 2,149 entries from 86 countries and regions, 54 of which were selected for the two competitions (Pan Pacific and Asia Competition and World Competition).

The Grand Prix, chosen among the two competitions by the artistic directors from the festival (Koji Yamamura and Shizuka Miyazaki), went to "Darwin's Notebook" a short film by Swiss master filmmaker Georges Schwizgebel. The film depicts colonial issues in a metamorphosis technique.

In the Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition, the Best Film was awarded to "Los Huesos" (Directed by Cristobal León & Joaquin Cocina, Chile). The film was highly acclaimed for its strong social satire in the setting of an excavated 16mm film. The jury consisted of three acclaimed animation professionals: Florence Miailhe (France), Chris Robinson (Canada), and Joe Hsieh (Taiwan),

For other award-winning entries, see the list below.

Award-winning Films of "Mitsui Fudosan Realty Chugoku Presents Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 Competition"

Grand Prix：”Darwinʼs Notebook”（Directed by Georges Schwizgebel/ Switzerland）
* The two artistic directors (Koji Yamamura and Shizuka Miyazaki) choose the film that best represents the festival from award-winning films, including the audience awards in the Pacific and Asia Competition and the World Competition.

[ The Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition ]
Jury Members： Florence Miailhe, Chris Robinson, Joe Hsieh

Best Film：”Los Huesos”（Directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociñ/ Chile）
Jury Personal Pick: Florence Miailhe Award： “Bird in the Peninsula”（Directed by Atsushi Wada/ Japan）
Jury Personal Pick: Chris Robinson Award： “The Loach” ( Directed by Chen Xi, An Xu/ China)
Jury Personal Pick: Joe Hsieh: “Bestia”（Directed by Hugo Covarrubias/ Chile）
Audience Award： “Bird in the Peninsula” (Directed by Atsushi Wada/ Japan）

[ World Competition ]
In addition to the category awards and jury awards already announced at the opening ceremony on August 17, the audience awards were also announced for each category, which was voted on by the audience after viewing the films.

Category: “Allegories Nowadays” Audience Award： “Skinned “ (Directed by Joachim Hérissé/ France)
Category: “A Slice of Society” Audience Award： “Precious”（Directed by Paul Mas/ France）
Category: “Adventure in Storytelling” Audience Award：”Darwinʼs Notebook” （Directed by Georges Schwizgebel／Switzerland）
Category: “Visual Poetry” Audience Award：”Zoon”（Directed by Jonatan Schwenk/ Germany）
Category: “The Spark: Films for Children” Audience Award： “A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays”（Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier/ Belgium, France)

The following awards have already been announced in advance:

Category: ”Allegories Nowadays” (for fiction-based films)
Category Award: Skinned (Joachim Hérissé/France)
Arthur Binard Award: Confessions of an English Ant-Eater (Alex Crumbie/United Kingdom)
Hiroko Sebu Award: In the Mountains (Wally Chung/United States)
Shizuka Miyazaki Award: Prince in a Pastry Shop (Katarzyna Agopsowicz/Poland)

Category: “A Slice of Society” (for animated documentaries and films with social issues)
Category Award: Salvia at Nine (Jang Nari/Korea)
Kiki Sugino Award: The House of Loss (Jinkyu Jeon /Japan, Korea)
Asako Fujioka Award: All Those Sensations in My Belly (Marko Dješka/Croatia)
Honami Yano Award: Mom, Whatʼs up with the Dog? (Lola Lefevre/France)

Category: “Adventure in Storytelling” (for films with a unique narrative)
Category Award: Darwinʼs Notebook (Georges Schwizgebel/Switzerland)
Min Tanaka Award: The Blind Writer (Georges Sifianos/Greece)
Yūki Harada Award: My Father's Damn Camera (Milos Tomic/Slovenia)
Sarina Nihei Award: In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-weeny Pocket (Yōko Yuki/Japan)

Category: “Visual Poetry” (for poetic films)
Category Award: Archipel (Felix Dufour-Laperriere/Canada)
Ma Jung-Yeon Award: Intermission (Réka Bucsi/Hungary)
Daito Manabe Award: Clockwise (Toni Mitjanit/Spain)
Koji Yamamura Award: Zoon (Jonatan Schwenk/Germany)

[ Special Jury Award ]

Feature Film Jury Award： “When You Get To The Forest “ (Directed by Eric Power / United States)
Jury Members: Masashi Koide (Professor of Tokyo Zokei University), Akiko Sugawa
(Professor of Yokohama National University, President of Japan Society for Animation Studies), Kōji Takase (Animation Researcher and Critic), Mirai Mizue (Animation Artist, President of Japan Animation Association)
*Researchers, critics, writers, and other professionals based in Japan judge the feature films in the competition.

Hiroshima Choice: “A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays”（Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier/ Belgium, France)
Jury Members: Akiko Isonaga (freelance writer), Mitsuhiro Seimasa (READAN DEAT store owner), Takeshi Matsuoka (Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art)
* Short films in the competition are judged by Hiroshima-based cultural and arts professionals.

HAC（Hiroshima Animation City）Award: “A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays”（Directed by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier/ Belgium, France)
*Hiroshima Animation City, a non-profit organization that supports animation culture in Hiroshima, judges all competition films.

The next Hiroshima Animation Season will be held two years later, in August 2024.

For the full festival program, please visit the official festival https://animation.hiroshimafest.org/uploads/2022/08/HAS_program_220811_en.pdf

"Hiroshima Animation Season 2022" (August 17-21, 2022) is an international animation film festival to be held as the main program of the Media Arts Division of the "Hiroshima Festival" (August 1-28, 2022), which is newly launched by the City of Hiroshima in August 2022.