‘Chicken For Linda!’ Wins Best Animated Feature At France’s César Awards

The French Academy’s César Awards were held over the weekend, where Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s Chicken For Linda! won best animated feature. Although only three films were nominated, each brought an impressive resume to the competition.

Chicken for Linda! has had a tremendous festival run, premiering out of competition in the Acid section of last year’s Cannes Festival before heading to Annecy, where it won the Cristal for a feature film. The film also took top feature honors at the Manchester Animation Festival and L.A.’s Animation is Film, and screened in competition at Ottawa and Torino.

GKIDS has U.S. distribution rights to Chicken for Linda! and, although it hasn’t announced a release date yet, says the film is “coming soon.”

Fellow César nominee Mars Express is similarly repped by GKIDS and will hit U.S. theaters later this year. Directed by Jérémie Perin, the sci-fi feature had a fruitful festival run of its own, including official selections at last year’s Cannes and Annecy.

The third and final animated feature nominee at this year’s Césars was Alain Ughetto’s No Dogs or Italians Allowed. A bit older than the other two nominees, in 2022, this stop-motion immigration story won awards at numerous international festivals, including Annecy, Tokyo Anime, Torino, Anima – Brussels, and Bucheon. It also won the 2022 European Film Awards’ animated feature prize.

Cyrille Bonjean, Bruno Sommier, and Jean-Louis Autret won the César for best visual effects for their work on director Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom, a mind-bender about a father and son adapting to a world where animal-human hybrids are becoming commonplace.

Best Animated Feature

• No Dogs Or Italians Allowed, Alain Unghetto
• Chicken For Linda!, Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach – WINNER
•  Mars Express, Jérémie Périn

Best Visual Effects

• Thomas Duval, Acid
•  Lise Fischer, Cédric Fayolle, The Mountain
•  Cyrille Bonjean, Bruno Sommier, Jean-Louis Autret, The Animal Kingdom – WINNER
•  Oliver Cauwet, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2)
•  Léo Ewald, Vermin