Zagreb To Honor Joanna Quinn With Its 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award

Veteran British animator Joanna Quinn has been named Animafest Zagreb’s 2026 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, adding another major honor to her legendary career.

The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony this June, recognizing Quinn’s decades-long contribution to independent animation and her enduring connection to Zagreb, where her work has been celebrated since the early 1990s.

Across her career, Quinn has accumulated a broad mix of accolades, including multiple BAFTAs and Emmys, as well as two Oscar nominations, most recently for Affairs of the Art in 2022.

Quinn first broke through with Girls Night Out in 1987, introducing Beryl, her now-iconic anti-heroine whose chaotic energy and working-class candor became a constant across films like Body Beautiful and Dreams and Desires. Her films frequently touch on themes of gender, labor, and bodily expression, delivered through a sketchy, elastic drawing style that remains unmistakably hand-crafted.

Animafest’s official announcement praises Quinn’s long-running collaboration with her most famous creation, pointedly addressing the honor to Beryl herself. “We are awarding you, Beryl,” the festival writes, calling her “one of the most striking and memorable characters in the history of animation.”

At the same time, the announcement makes clear that Beryl’s unruly spirit is inseparable from Quinn’s authorial touch, praising the filmmaker’s ability to channel lived experience into animation that feels immediate and unfiltered. The festival highlights Quinn’s “exceptional observational skills and drawing virtuosity,” noting how her work consistently bridges caricature and emotional truth.