AnimationXpress to celebrate creative excellence with Arnab Chaudhuri Director’s Award at ANN Awards 2025

AnimationXpress’ ANN Awards 2025 sets the stage to spotlight creativity and recognise outstanding work in the animation industry as part of the Animation & More (AM) Summit. In 2021, ANN Awards introduced a special segment honouring the legend and champion of Indian animation,  Arnab Chaudhuri whose prolific work put Indian Animation on the world map. His directorial feature, Arjun, the warrior prince, was the first Indian animated feature to be in the shortlist at the Academy Awards ( Oscars). 

The Arnab Chaudhuri Awards celebrate directors and filmmakers who have displayed brilliance in their craft, vision and originality. The 2025 edition of the awards will further the scope by accepting entries and nominations from across Asia, across both categories –

• Arnab Chaudhuri Animation Ace Award celebrates a director whose vision and inventiveness pushes the boundaries of storytelling and craft

• Arnab Chaudhuri Young Ace Award recognises a student director whose work displays bold & unique vision, a flair for storytelling and artistic excellence 

The winners of the Arnab Chaudhuri Animation Ace Award are selected by a distinguished panel comprising individuals who worked closely with Chaudhuri during his lifetime. The panel includes Srishti Manipal, UPES Dehradun & IIT Hyderabad Adjunct Professor Nina Sabnani; filmmaker, animator & UCLAN animation lecturer Pete Bishop; On Air Promos Sdn Bhd creative director Rob Middleton; Disney Branded Television International animation vice president Orion Ross, UID NCR adjunct faculty Prakash Moorthy; along with AnimationXpress founder, chairman, and editor-in-chief  Anil NM Wanvari, and Ashima Avasthi Chaudhuri. 

The Young Ace Awards category encourages students to enter their animation projects that would be judged by the animation industry experts. All the submitted entries are thoroughly reviewed to determine the winner in this category. Winners in both categories receive cash prizes, jointly funded by Avasthi, Vaibhav Studios, and AnimationXpress.

In the first edition of Arnab Chaudhuri directors awards, Arnab Chaudhuri Animation Ace Award was presented to Krishna Chandran A. Nair in 2021, followed by Upamanyu Bhattacharya in 2022, Neeraja Raj in 2023 and Shaheen Sheriff in 2024.

While Sovan Dutta (SRFTI) won the Young Ace Award – Short Form category, while Balaram J (National Institute of Design) took the Young Ace Award – Long Form category. Pivari Kejriwal (Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology) won in 2022, Gaurav Pati (NID) won in 2023 followed by Karthik Mahajan (NID) in 2024.

AnimationXpress is accepting entries for the prestigious Arnab Chaudhuri Young Ace Award as part of the ANN Awards 2025 until 31 July 2025. The highly anticipated annual animation conference Animation & More Summit is set to return with an extravagant surprise: Anime India 2025, India’s first anime convention. The joint event is spread across three days between 22-24 August 2025 at NESCO’s Bombay Exhibition Center (BEC) in Mumbai, India.

To know more about the latest edition read: AnimationXpress brings Anime India 2025 along with seventh edition of Animation & More Summit

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