European Film Awards 2021: Record Five Animated Features Nominated

Cartoon Saloon’s ecological fable Wolfwalkers is a throwback to the last awards season, when it earned plenty of prizes and an Oscar nomination. The other three have kept low profiles so far this season, and have yet to find U.S. distribution.

Where Is Anne Frank is a retelling of the famous Holocaust victim’s story directed by Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir). The Ape Star is a family film about an orphan who forms a friendship with a gorilla; it played in competition at Annecy this year. Even Mice Belong in Heaven is a stop-motion feature, also for young audiences, about a mouse and a fox who meet in animal heaven; it too played at Annecy.

This is the first time five films have been nominated in this category, rather than the customary three or four. Curiously, the rules for this year’s awards state that four films would be nominated.

The EFA winner is voted on by the European Film Academy’s 4,000-odd members. Recent winners in the category include Josep (2020), Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (2019), Another Day of Life (2018), Loving Vincent (2017), My Life as a Courgette (2016), and Song of the Sea (2015).

In the short film category, which combines both animated and live-action films, the sole animated nominee this year is Nicolas Keppens’s Easter Eggs (Belgium/France/Netherlands).

Image at top: “Even Mice Belong in Heaven”