Annecy Winners: ‘Flee,’ ‘Bob Spit,’ ‘Peel,’ ‘Vanille’ Take Top Prizes
The curtain has come down on a most unusual edition of Annecy. Held in a hybrid format for the first time, the festival drew more than 8,000 badgeholders, half of them onsite — a significant drop from the peak of 12,300 in 2019, but a notable achievement in the circumstances.
Not that any of this affected the quality of the competition, the results of which were announced over the weekend. On the feature side, the big winner was Flee, which took home the Cristal and Gan Foundation Award. Already honored at Sundance, the documentary tells the story of a gay Afghan refugee in Denmark who harbors a big secret. Neon will release the film in North America.
Afghanistan also figures in My Sunny Maad, the first animated feature from Michaela Pavlátová, in which a Czech woman moves to Kabul to be with her husband. The film won the Jury Award. In the Contrechamp competition, the prize went to Bob Spit — We Do Not Like People, a stop-motion documentary of sorts based on the work of Brazilian cartoonist Angeli. The feature was originally supposed to play last year, but the pandemic delayed production.
Swiss productions put in a strong showing. The Cristal for a short film went to Peel, a(nother!) documentary, this one a portrait of a retirement home; co-director Samuel Patthey mentioned the project to us in 2019, during an interview about his previous film. The French-Swiss tv special Vanille took the Cristal for a tv production. Directed by Guadeloupe-born Guillaume Lorin, it follows the adventures of a Parisian girl in the island territory.
Read on for a full list of winners:
Feature Films
Cristal for a Feature Film
Flee — Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark/France/Norway/Sweden
Jury Award
My Sunny Maad — Michaela Pavlátová, Czech Republic/France/Slovakia
Jury Distinction
The Crossing — Florence Miailhe, Poland
Gan Foundation Award for Distribution
Flee — Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark/France/Norway/Sweden
Contrechamp Award
Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People — Cesar Cabral, Brazil
Contrechamp Jury Distinction
Archipelago — Félix Dufour-Laperrière, Canada
Short Films
Cristal for a Short Film
Peel — Samuel Patthey, Silvain Monney, Switzerland
Jury Award
Easter Eggs — Nicolas Keppens, Belgium/France/Netherlands
Jury Distinction – Special Distinction for Direction
Affairs of the Art — Joanna Quinn, U.K.
Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film
Hold Me Tight — Mélanie Robert-Tourneur, Belgium/France
Off-Limits Award
Tunable Mimoid — Vladimir Todorovic, Australia
TV and Commissioned Films
Cristal for a TV Production
Vanille — Guillaume Lorin, France/Switzerland
Jury Award for a TV Series
Japan Sinks: 2020 “The Beginning of the End” — Masaaki Yuasa, Japan
Jury Award for a TV Special
Mum Is Pouring Rain — Hugo de Faucompret, France
Cristal for a Commissioned Film
Kai, “A Little Too Much” — Martina Scarpelli, U.S.
Jury Award for a Commissioned Film
Help! We Have a Blind Patient — Robin Jensen, Norway
Graduation Films
Cristal for a Graduation Film
Hippocampe — Zehao Li, China
Jury Award
Avant — Marcell Mostoha, Hungary
Jury Distinction for Art Direction
Butterfly Jam — Shih-Yen Huang, France/Taiwan
VR Works
Cristal for the Best VR Work
Replacements (Penggantian) — Jonathan Hagard, Germany/Indonesia/Japan
