The closing weekend of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (IAFF), running from 9 to 15 June 2024, undoubtedly brought joy to all fans of Czech films and especially Czech animation, one of the strongest animation traditions in the world.

After a highly successful last year, which saw 7 Czech films in the official selection (learn more about them here), including Daria Kashcheeva's award-winning Electra and Filip Pošivač's acclaimed feature-length debut Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light, awarded with Contrechamp Jury Award, Czech animation once again took the spotlight at Annecy.

Living Large by Kristina Dufková, produced by Matěj Chlupáček of Barletta and coproduced by Czech Television, NOVINSKI (SK) and Novanima Productions (FR), won the Contrechamp Jury Award, one of the two prizes awarded in the Contrechamp competition, which complements the Official Competition. Living Large adresses the topic of teenage overweight in the sensitive coming of age story based on the book by French author Mikaël Ollivier. Gebeka International, which handles the sales, has already managed to sell the film to several territories in advance of its premiere at Annecy, including Japan, Spain, Portugal, and countries in the Baltics and the Middle East.

Another awarded film si Hurikan by Jan Saska, who already garnered attention at Annecy in 2016 with his black comedy Happy End, a short film that even made it to the Oscar shortlist. Produced by Martin Vandas of MAUR film and Kamila Dohnalová of Last Films and co-produced by Laïdak Films (FR), Artichoke (SK), AEON Production (BiH), Saska's stylish short, featuring the pig-headed protagonist on a quest to deliver a keg of beer, and inspired by the works of Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, and Sylvain Chomet, received the Audience Award.

Czech animated shorts also succeeded in the Special Prizes category, which was announced on Friday 14 June. Clay animation Joko (PL, DE, CZ) by Izabelą Plucińską, produced by MAUR film on the Czech side, won the Best Original Music Award for a Short Film, and Hello Summer (SK, CZ, FR) by Martin Smatana and Veronika Zacharová, a vibrant film merging stop-motion with hand-drawn animation techniques to tell the story of a family vacation, produced by Studio Bororo (SK), Last Films and MAUR film and coproduced by Vivement Lundi ! (FR), took the Young Audience Award. This is a second Annecy win for Martin Smatana, who previously won the Young Audience Award at Annecy, in 2019, for the widely traveled animated puppet film The Kite.