The world’s top animation film event, the Annecy International Animated Film Festival took place between 13 and 18 June, where Balázs Turai took home the best animated short film award for his short Amok, also earning him an Academy Awards nomination.

This year’s Annecy Festival featured four Hungarian animation shorts: two degree films, Felhők felett (Above the Clouds) by Vivien Hárshegyi and Nyugvó köd (Settling Mist) by Nikolett Fábián from the MOME Anim, an episode of Géza M. Tóth’s Mitch-Match series in the television film category, and the animation short Amok by Balázs Turai in the animation shorts section. 

Amok won not one, but two prizes. It was selected from the best short films and diploma films for the France Télévisions prize, and the accolade means the film will also air on the television channel.
Yet it was the award ceremony on Saturday that held the real surprise: Amok was awarded the Cristal — one, if not the, major prizes of the festival. Balázs’s film was found to be the best of 38 animation shorts. This is a particularly impressive feat partly because there has been only one other Hungarian award-winning film in the 62-year history of the festival, Ferenc Cakó’s Ab ovo in 1989.
 

Congratulations!