Pablo Berger’s “Robot Dreams” Named Contrechamp Winner at Annecy Animation Festival

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Pablo Berger is celebrating a special win…

The 60-year-old Spanish writer and director claimed the top honors for the Annecy Animation Festival’s parallel Contrechamp competition.

Pablo BergerBerger won for his Cannes Film Festival breakout film Robot Dreams, a bittersweet 2D tale of friendship between a robot and a dog in 1980s New York.

Adapted from a graphic novel by Sara Varon, the Spanish film swaps any-and-all spoken dialogue for some toe-tapping needle drops and silent comedy gags.

Robot DreamsNeon will release the film stateside later this year.

Here’s a look at all the winners:

FEATURE FILMS

Cristal for a Feature Film
“Chicken for Linda!” (Chiara Malta, Sebastien Laudenbach, France, Italy)

Jury Award
“Four Souls of Coyote” (Aron Gauder, Hungary)

Paul Grimault Award
“The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes” (Tomohisa Taguchi, Japan)

Gan Foundation Award for Distribution
“Chicken for Linda!” (Chiara Malta, Sebastien Laudenbach, France, Italy)

Contrechamp Grand Prix
“Robot Dreams” (Pablo Berger, Spain, France)

Contrechamp Jury Award
“Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light” (Filip Pošivač, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia)

Audience Award
“Sirocco and the Kingdom of Air Streams” (Benoit Chieux, Belgium, France)

SHORT FILMS

Cristal for a Short Film
“27” (Flóra Anna Buda, France, Hungary)

Jury Award
“Drijf” (Levi Stoops, Belgium)

Alexeïeff – Parker Award  [ex mention du jury]
“Eeva” (Morten Tšinakov, Lucija Mrzljak  Estonia, Croatia)

Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film
“Our Uniform” (Yegane Moghaddam, Iran)

Off-Limits Award
“Is Heaven Blue? #2” (Menno De Nooijer Paul De Nooijer Norway, Netherlands)

Audience Award
“Nun or Never!” (Heta Jäälinoja, Finland) 

TV FILMS

Cristal for a TV Production
Pebble Hill (Marjolaine Perreten, Belgium, France, Switzerland)

First Jury Award for a TV Series
Shape Island “Square’s Big Prank”
(Drew Hodges, USA)

Second Jury Award for a TV Series
Scavengers Reign “The Wall
(Vincent Tsui, USA) 

COMMISSIONED FILMS

Cristal for a Commissioned Film
November Ultra “Come Into My Arms” (Tamerlan Bekmurzayev, France)

Jury Award for a Commissioned Film
The Beatles “I’m Only Sleeping” (Em Cooper, UK)

GRADUATION FILMS 

Cristal for a Graduation Film
“La notte” (Martina Generali, Simone Pratola, Francesca Rosso, Italy)

Jury Award
“Harbourmaster” (Mia L. Henriksen, Konrad Hjemli, Norway)

Lotte Reiniger Award
“Mano” (Toke Madsen, Denmark)

VR WORKS

Cristal for the Best VR Work
“Red Tail” (Fish Wang, Taiwan)
Fish WANG

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