Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2019: Five Animated Features Nominated

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) have announced the five animated features in contention for this year’s prize. Now in its thirteenth year, the APSA accepts entries from 70 territories in the region, ranging from the Middle East to Polynesia, and Russia to Australia.

The winner of the animated feature prize will be revealed at a ceremony on November 21 in Brisbane, Australia. The nominees are:

• Mosley — director: Kirby Atkins (New Zealand/China)
• Penguin Highway — director: Hiroyasu Ishida (Japan)
• Underdog — directors: Oh Sung-yoon, Lee Choon-baek (South Korea)
  
• The Unseen — director: Behzad Nalbandi (Iran)
  
• Weathering with You — director: Makoto Shinkai (Japan)

Of these films, Weathering with You, Shinkai’s follow-up to his global blockbuster Your Name, has by far the highest profile. It is the only one to have been submitted in this year’s Oscar race — where it has two shots at a nomination, having also been picked as Japan’s submission for the International Feature Film Oscar. (Incidentally, Shinkai won the first-ever APSA for best animated feature in 2007 for 5 Centimeters per Second.)

Each year, the nominees are chosen by selection panels assembled by the APSA. They are then put to international juries, who select the winners. Read about this year’s animation jury on the APSA’s website.

Past winners in the animated feature category include Rezo (2018), Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming (2017), Seoul Station (2016), Miss Hokusai (2015), and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2014).