Pakistan Submits Traditionally-Animated Feature ‘The Glassworker’ For Best International Feature Oscar Race

Pakistan is the second country this year to submit an animated feature as the country’s official entry for the international feature film category of the 97th Academy Awards, following Latvia which submitted Flow.

Pakistan’s submission is Usman Riaz’s The Glassworker, the first traditionally-animated 2d feature made in Pakistan. The 98-minute Ghibli-inspired film world premiered in competition at Annecy last June and has been playing the festival circuit including Hiroshima and the upcoming Sitges. It was also released theatrically in Pakistan in July.

The Romeo and Juliet-esque tale involves a young glassworker who falls in love with an aspiring violinist, set against a backdrop of impending war and ideologically-opposed fathers.

Riaz’s company Mano Animation Studios, which he founded with Khizer Riaz and Mariam Riaz Paracha, made the film. Veteran Spanish producer Manuel Cristóbal (Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles) produced the film. Charades is handling international sales for the film; a U.S distributor has not been announced yet.

Cartoon Brew interviewed Riaz, Cristóbal, and other members of the crew at Annecy in 2022 while the film was still in production, during which they explained the challenges of creating an ambitious hand-drawn feature in a country that doesn’t have an extensive history of classical 2d animation at this scale. The interview can be viewed below: