The Ottawa International Animation Festival is just around the corner, and it promises to be an extra-special edition because the biggest and oldest animation event in North America is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The festival runs September 21-25.

The festival announced this week the official selections for its short and feature film competitions. From a total of 2,311 entries, Ottawa selected 111 short-form animation projects and 7 feature films for competition, in addition to 49 shorts for panorama screenings representing Canadian, international, and student animation.

“This is my 25th year with the OIAF and I can’t recall a more challenging selection process,” said Chris Robinson, artistic director at OIAF. “Many good films—which in another year might have been selected—didn’t make the cut. That’s a great compliment to those that did and a greater one to the current state of international animation.”

Ottawa’s short film competition presents an excellent opportunity to catch up on films from both up-and-coming talents and established filmmakers. This year offers the latest efforts by a great variety of esteemed animation creators including Phil Mulloy, Igor Kovalyov, Janet Perlman, Georges Schwizgebel, and Koji Yamamura, among others.

The seven features in competition are:

  • Cafard dir. Jan Bultheel
  • Louise en hiver dir. Jean-Francois Laguionie
  • Nerdland dir. Chris Prynoski
  • Nuts! dir. Penny Lane
  • Psiconautas, The Forgotten Children dir. Alberto Vazquez, Pedro Rivero
  • Snowtime! dir. Jean-François Pouliot and François Brisson
  • Window Horses dir. Ann Marie Fleming

The full list of selections can be seen on the festival website.

Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Publisher and Editor-at-large.

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