By ATSUSHI OHARA/ Staff Writer
October 15, 2022 at 07:00 JST
“Bird in the Peninsula” ((c) Miyu Productions, New Deer 2022)
Director Atsushi Wada won the Grand Prize for Short Animation for his “Bird in the Peninsula” at the 46th Ottawa International Animation Festival and Koji Yamamura received the Grand Prize for Feature Animation for his “Dozens of Norths.”
The festival, which ended Sept. 25, is regarded as one of the world’s most respected animation events and on a par with those held in Annecy, France, Zagreb in Croatia and Hiroshima. The Hiroshima event ended in 2020.
It is the second year running for a Japanese director to win the top award in the short film category, which the Ottawa festival places the most importance.
Last year, the prize went to Honami Yano’s “Honekami” (A Bite of Bone).
Wada is the fourth Japanese creator to receive the award.
“Bird in the Peninsula” was also given a Special Mention in the short film category at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, which also included live-action works.
Yamamura won the top award for his short film “Mt. Head” at the Annecy festival in 2003 and at the Zagreb and Hiroshima events in 2004.
His “Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor” won the best short film award at Ottawa in 2007 and Hiroshima in 2008.
“Dozens of Norths” is Yamamura's first feature-length film.
Previously, Ottawa’s Grand Prize for Feature Animation went to Masaaki Yuasa's “Lu Over the Wall” in 2017 and to Kenji Iwaisawa’s “On-Gaku: Our Sound” in 2019.
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