Ottawa International Animation Festival Announces Young Audience Selection

With the Annecy International Animation Film Festival behind us its time to look ahead to one of the animation calendar's other biggest events. The Ottawa International Animation Festival is arguably the largest event of its kind in North America. As the next stage of their reveal, OIAF have announced the selection for its Young Audiences 8+ and 13+ competition categories. OIAF's newest competition category includes 10 films that bridge the gap between child and adult audiences, including the latest from Pixar and their Sparkshorts program. The 8+ category includes nine selections, including a film from Portuguese high school students.

The teen audience selection will be judged by teens in the audience at the festival. The 7+ films are judged by the OIAF Kid's jury.

OIAF hopes that the audience or jury of today could be the animators of tomorrow. "Each year we try to find an array of voices and visions to introduce younger audiences to sides of animation that they can’t easily access," says OIAF Artistic Director Chris Robinson."These films will hopefully inspire and encourage a new generation of artists to follow their own creative paths."

The films selected cover a range of subjects and styles and come from filmmakers from several countries. Canada and the United States are particularly well represented,

The Teen Audiences 13+ competition includes:

 

• Crème à glace (Out for Ice Cream) (dir. Rachel Samson, Canada)
• Crvotočina (Wormhole) (dir. Tara Klepac, Croatia)
• Girls In Real Life Situations (dir. Ofre Sparrow Vaknin, United States)
• Hairy Legs (dir. Andrea Dorfman, Canada)
• J'ai avalé une chenille (My Teenage Blackout) (dir. Basile Khatir, France)
• Nabu (dir. Joanna Rusinek, Poland)
• Self (dir. Searit Huluf, United States)
• The All-Nimal (dir. Nick Edwards, United States)
• The Last Drop (dirs. Constance Braun, Mathilde Zupancie, Lauriane Devaux, Timothée Adens, Charlie Bossuyt, Raphaël Debroize, and Baptiste Janusz, France)
• Unblending (dir. Michelle Ku, Canada)
 

The  Teen Audience 13+ winner will be selected by teens at the Teens @ OIAF day on September 27

 The Young Audiences 8+ category includes:

 

• Beurk ! (Yuck!) (dir. Loïc Espuche, France)
• Freak of Nature (dir. Alexandra Lermer, Germany)
• Kanopos ir pačiūžos (Hoofs on skates) (dir. Ignas Meilūnas, Lithuania)
• Le grand party annuel des créatures de la Lune (The Great Annual Party of the Creatures of the Moon) (dir. Francis Desharnais, Canada)
• Marie (dir. Jan B. Piskač, Czech Republic)
• Nube (dirs. Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada and Christian Arredondo Narvaez, France/Mexico/Hungary)
• O krávě (About a Cow) (dir. Pavla Baštanová, Czech Republic/Switzerland)
• São só diabretes (Just Little Imps) (dirs. Students from Highschool of Escola Básica Maria Pais Ribeiro, Portugal)
• Tuu Tuu Til (dir. Veronica Solomon, Germany)   

The Young Audiences 8+ will be judged by the OIAF Kids Jury, which is formed by animation enthusiasts aged 8-13 in the Ottowa area. Applications are now open until July 29.

The Ottowa International Animation Festival will return from September 25- September 29. The festival will screen numerous programs of shorts, features, workshops, masterclasses, panels and more. Earlier this year, the festival announced its expert jury for 2024.