Animation UK was an industry sponsor for this year’s prestigious ceremony, which was held at London’s BFI Southbank and presented by comedian Henning Wehn.
Now in their 28th year, the British Animation Awards (BAAs) attract the great and the good from one of the nation’s most successful creative industries to this biennial celebration of their craft.
The night’s big winner was Lupus Films’ hand-drawn animated feature film Kensuke’s Kingdom which triumphed in three categories including Best Feature, the Writers Award for Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Best Original Music, for composer Stuart Hancock. Adapted from the classic adventure story by Michael Morpurgo and directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, the film, about a boy shipwrecked on a seemingly-deserted island, features the voices of Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe.
London-based animation studio Lupus Films was also successful in the Best Long Form category. Its delightful Channel 4 hand-drawn animation adapted from Judith Kerr’s classic picture book Mog’s Christmas (dir. Robin Shaw) shared the honours with A Bear Called Wojtek, Iain Gardner’s extraordinary film about Edinburgh Zoo’s famous brown bear who was adopted by Polish soldiers in WWII.
Meanwhile the Best Short Film category was won by Elizabeth Hobbs for The Debutante, a startlingly visual tale about a spirited young woman who persuades a hyena from London Zoo to take her place at a dinner dance held in her honour.
The starry ensemble cast of Sky Cinema’s The Amazing Maurice (dir: Toby Genkel, Florian Westermann) won the BAA for Best Voice Performance. The fantasy comedy based on the Terry Pratchett novel about a streetwise cat and his gang of rats, featured the voices of Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Hugh Bonneville, David Tennant and Ariyon Bakare.
Great British Bake Off’s promotional trailer for 2023 proved to be a recipe for success in the Best Animation in a Commercial category, while rocking the Best Music Video Award was Late Nights, directed by Golden Wolf for Death by Romy and Adult Swim.
Channel 5 Milkshake!’s adorable animation Odo, about a little owl with a big heart, flew off with two awards. Produced by Belfast-based Sixteen South, the series picked up the awards for Best Children’s Pre-School Series and Best Design. Meanwhile, the Best Children’s Series Award went to the hapless heroes from The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, directed by Edward Foster and produced by the Illuminated Film Company for ITV. Staying with the children’s categories, the Best International Animated Series was awarded to Nickelodeon’s The Tiny Chef Show and Factory Create.
Winning the award for Best Use of Sound was Magic Light Pictures’ delightful family animation based on the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler The Smeds and the Smoos.
A distinctive film about dementia Another Presence won the award for Best Factual. Produced, written and directed by Simon Ball, the film recounted the unique and often curious experiences of people living with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Meanwhile, the Social Good category went to Change the Ending, an impactful film directed by againstallodds about the importance of Alzheimer Research UK’s mission to find a cure for the disease.
In two of the newer BAA categories, the Cutting Edge award, for challenging the status quo, was picked up by Emma Calder for Beware of Trains, while the Wildcard category was won by Jon Dunleavy’s Two Gracious Uncles Smooched to the Beat.
Some of the leading British animation courses were represented in the Best Undergraduate and Best Postgraduate Student films. The winners were Sena Miyazaki’s (Arts University Bournemouth) Cortex for Best Undergraduate Student Film and Tanya J.Scott’s (National Film and Television School) The Wolf of Custer for Best Postgraduate Student Film.
Introduced in 2020, The Lamb Award bridges the gap between current categories which recognise student achievements and general best-in-class awards, and is open to any young professionals working in the animation and VFX industry. The winner of the 2024 Lamb Award is Malachi James, who was nominated by Blue Zoo.
Two of awards on the night were decided by members of the public. The winners of these were: Netflix’s Dead End – Paranormal Park(dir. Liz Whitaker) voted for by year 4 pupils from St Mary Redcliffe Primary School in Bristol for Children’s Choice Award; and Shackle directed by Ainslie Henderson for The Audience Award.
Created by Derek Hayes.
The awards themselves (the BAAs) are unique, edition-numbered linocut/relief prints paying homage to Renaissance ‘Triumph’ pictures like Holbein’s 1533 artwork Triumph of Wealth and Mantegna’s 1484-1492 Triumphs of Caesar. Featuring some of the best-loved animation characters of the last 100 years, The Triumph of Animation awards were created by animator and artist Derek Hayes, senior lecturer Animation and FX at Falmouth University
As always we have been blown away by the quality of work produced by the British Animation industry over the last couple of years and would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners.
Helen Brunsdon, Director, and Kieran Argo, Producer of the British Animation Awards
The BAAs are the only awards to recognise all forms of animation and reward the work of both new and established animators across all aspects of the UK animation scene, from student work to commercials, children’s entertainment, short and experiential films, music videos and new technologies.
