“Migrants,” a deeply textured eight-minute animated short about a polar bear cub and its mother driven to look for a new home because of climate change, has been named the best short of VIEW Fest, the short film festival sponsored by the VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy.
The story touched the international jury with its interwoven themes of global warming and immigration told through the experience of the homeless polar bears, who find themselves the subject of scorn and ridicule when they reach a new land populated by unfriendly brown bears. The film was made by fifth-year students at France’s POLE 3D: Zoé Devise, Lucas Lermytte, Hugo Caby, Aubin Kubiak and Antoine Dupriez. “Migrants” received the top prize of $2,000 euros.
“Latitude du Printemps,” the story of an abandoned dog, a precocious boy and a professional cyclist, received the Jury Award. The film was made by Sylvain Cuvillier, Chloé Bourdic, Théophile Coursimault, Noémie Halberstam, Maŷlis Mosny and Zijing Ye of the Rubika School in France. The jury praised its inventive storytelling and refreshing animation, and awarded it the 500 euro prize.
Tthe jury remarked on the overall quality of the entries in the 2020 competition, said VIEW Conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “The jurors were impressed with the variety of animation styles and stories, and they said the production level on some of the entries was insane.”
Because the slate of films was so strong, the jury also awarded two honorable mentions: one to Alexandre Manzanares’ seven-minute “Trésor,” about a pair of clumsy treasure hunters, a lovesick octopus and the mermaid they all covet, and the other to the darkly funny “The Dead Hands of Dublin” by Leo Crowley, about enchanted gloves and the unlucky pianist who finds them.
Winner of the ItalianMix Award for Italian-made short was “For Teddy,” Marco Giglio’s three-minute film about a band of space marines bidding a fond farewell to their deceased teddy bear comrade. Giglio won a Wacom Tablet Intuos Pro for the short.
In addition to Gutierrez, jury members included journalist Barbara Robertson, production designer Celine Desrumaus, investor Steve Meunch, “The Closing Credits” podcast host Kristina Morss, DNEG global head of animation Theodore Ty, Pixar digital artist Dylan Sisson and Francesco Narciso, Neo graduate in design and visual communication at Polytechnic of Turin.
VIEW Conference, which stands for Virtual Interactive Emerging World, has continually attracted a who’s who of luminaries in visual effects, animation, gaming, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality to the weeklong conference to give talks, participate in panels, network and hold master classes. It is held every fall in Turin, Italy. This year’s talks are available on-demand at here. On-demand ticket holders can view the VIEW 2020 Short Film Award winners online.
VIEW is sponsored by Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT, Regione Piemonte, Città di Torino and OGR.