“Gloria Victoria” Most Well Liked Animated Short of 2013
In a survey of fifteen respected festival programmers and critics who were each asked to name the best animated shorts of 2013, the film that came out on top was Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria. Produced at the National Film Board of Canada, the film was selected by eleven out of fifteen people surveyed.
The results of the survey are a fantastic portrait of the richness and diversity of contemporary short-form animated filmmaking. The survey also serves as a valuable guide because it represents the viewpoints of individuals rather than a unanimous awards body. Below are the ten animated shorts that received the most votes:
Gloria Victoria by Theodore Ushev, Canada
Palmipedarium by Jérémy Clapin, France
Subconscious Password by Chris Landreth, Canada
Autour du lac by Noémie Marsily and Carl Roosens, Belgium
Marcel, King of Tervuren by Tom Schroeder, United States
Feral by Daniel Sousa, United States
Futon by Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan
Lonely Bones by Rosto, The Netherlands
Mademoiselle Kiki et les Montparnos by Amélie Harrault, France
Plug & Play by Michael Frei, Switzerland
Here is how all of the Oscar shortlisted films fared in the survey:
11 mentions
Gloria Victoria by Theodore Ushev
8 mentions
Subconscious Password by Chris Landreth
4 mentions
Feral by Daniel Sousa
1 mention
Get a Horse! by Lauren MacMullan
0 mentions
Hollow Land by Uri and Michelle Kranot
The Missing Scarf by Eoin Duffy
Mr. Hublot by Laurent Witz
Possessions by Shuhei Morita
Requiem for Romance by Jonathan Ng
Room on the Broom by Max Lang and Jan Lachauer
Tellingly, the majority of the films that the Academy shortlisted were not on the radar of the animation community at large. This growing rift between the Oscars and the cutting edge of short form animation was discussed on the site a couple days ago, too. It would be a shame if the Academy’s struggle to keep pace with the evolving art and craft of animation filmmaking jeopardized the credibility of the Animated Short Oscar.
