‘Please,’ ‘God Is Shy,’ ‘Ball Face’ Among 2026 Viborg Animation Festival Winners

VIBORG, DENMARK – Viborg Animation Festival (VAF) handed out awards for its 2026 competition on Friday evening in the quaint Danish city, where Anna Mantzaris’ Please emerged as the event’s big winner. The stop-motion dark comedy took both the Audience Award and the Zeitgeist Award, giving Mantzaris recognition from festivalgoers as well as VAF’s jury.

Held September 7–13, VAF combines international screenings with talks, workshops, exhibitions, pitchings, and more experimental events that highlight Denmark’s animation and games industries. The festival has particularly close ties, organizationally and geographically, to Viborg’s The Animation Workshop, one of Europe’s leading animation schools, and its awards reflect that dual focus on established international filmmakers and emerging local talent.

Several of this year’s winning films arrived on festival hot-streaks. Laurence Thérien’s Ball Face, a darkly comic claymation film about a schoolgirl attempting to survive a brutal ball game, won VAF’s graduation prize after taking the graduation film Cristal at Annecy in June. The film uses its protagonist’s continually deforming face to explore resilience, masking, and the ways children reshape themselves to fit in.

VAF’s best short prize went to Jocelyn Charles’ God Is Shy. The French film follows two train passengers who pass the time by drawing their greatest fears before a mysterious older woman joins their game. It previously screened in competition at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, earned a César nomination, and won the Labo competition’s grand prize at Clermont-Ferrand.

Nicolas Piret’s Venezia Diorama was named best experimental film, while Mike A. Smith’s hand-drawn The Epic of Enkidu received the Children’s Choice Award. Smith’s film offers a fractured, comic retelling of the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, shifting the story’s attention to the wild man Enkidu and imagining what might have been lost from the surviving clay tablets.

The festival also recognized a Danish short and a student-developed game. Nothing Really Dies received the FVV Danish Talent Award, while the wonderfully titled The Religious Quest of Saint Kjeld & His Slightly Questionable Use of Coffins won the VAF Talent Jam.

2026 VAF Winners

Audience Award
Please, Anna Mantzaris (Sweden, France, Czech Republic, Norway, Finland)

FVV Danish Talent Award
Nothing Will Die, Rasmus Sølvsten (Denmark)

Best Graduation Film
Ball Face, Laurence Thérien (U.K., Canada)

Best Experimental Film
Venezia Diorama, Nicolas Piret (Belgium)

Best Short Film
God Is Shy, Jocelyn Charles (France)

Children’s Choice Award
The Epic of Enkidu, Mike A. Smith (U.S.)

Zeitgeist Award
Please, Anna Mantzaris (Sweden, France, Czech Republic, Norway, Finland)

VAF Talent Jam
The Religious Quest of Saint Kjeld & His Slightly Questionable Use of Coffins

Created by:

• Alex Weigelt Rasmussen, The Animation Workshop CG Arts
• Andreas Kamp Hansen, VIA University College – Software Engineering
• Marius Noah Jegbjerg, VIA University College – Software Engineering
• Max Dymaretska, VIA University College – Software Engineering
• Simon Jakobsen, VIA University College – Software Engineering