‘Memoir of a Snail,’ ‘Flow’ Split Feature Honors at Annecy, ‘Percebes’ Wins Best Short
variety.comJamie Lang The Annecy Animation Festival hosted its closing ceremony on Saturday, where there were two clear winners from the main feature film competition.
Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail” took Annecy’s top award, the Cristal for best feature, and Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow” scooped just about everything else.
Australian stop-motion feature “Memoir of a Snail” is the latest from Elliot, an Academy Award winner who scored the animated short statue in 2004 with his stop-motion film “Harvie Krumpet.” This time around, the director offers the heartstring-pulling story of Grace Pudel, a lonely misfit who loves collecting snails. “There’s a magic to 100%-CG-free stop-motion, with its cellophane flames and tears made of sexual lubricant,” wrote Variety Chief Film Critic Peter Debruge in his review of the film. “Don’t be surprised if ‘Memoir’ has you shedding real ones in your seat.” Zilbalodis’ “Flow” won a four-pack of honors at this year’s festival: the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, the Audience Award and the Jury Award, as well as the special prize for best original music, awarded on Friday evening. “Flow,” a Latvia-Belgium-France co-production, was a favorite heading into this year’s Annecy after a huge showing in Cannes, where it was one of its buzziest titles, animated or live-action.
The film will now hope to follow a recently worn path for animated features, such as “Robot Dreams” and “I Lost My Body,” which starts at Cannes, passes through Annecy, and ends at the Academy Awards with an Oscar nomination.
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