British Animation Awards 2024 recently revealed the names of the winners at a ceremony held at London’s BFI Southbank, presented by comedian Henning Wehn. Now in its 28th year, the British Animation Awards (BAAs) attracts the great and the good from one of the nation’s most successful creative industries to this biennial celebration of their craft.
“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,” said BAA director Helen Brunsdon and producer Kieran Argo.
Lupus Films’ hand-drawn animated feature film Kensuke’s Kingdom won big as it 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 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.
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 the 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 four pupils from St Mary Redcliffe Primary School in Bristol for Children’s Choice Award and Shackle directed by Ainslie Henderson for The Audience Award.
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.
Here is the full list of finalists and winners:
Best Design
Ms. Marvel – Dir: Ian Spendloff
ODO – Mum – Dir: Piotr Szczepanowicz, Mikolaj Pilchowski WINNER
Puffin Rock and The New Friends – Dir: Jeremy Purcell
Best Use of Sound
Kensuke’s Kingdom – Dir: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry
The Smeds and The Smoos – Dir: Daniel Snaddon, Samantha Cutler WINNER
The Sound Collector – Harp Strings – Dir: Chris Tichborne
Best Factual Award
Jeremy, my Father – Dir: Miranda Peyton Jones
Something More – Dir: Mary Martins
Another Presence – Dir: Simon Ball WINNER
A Taste For Music – Dir: Jordan Antonowicz-Behnan
Best Voice Performance
Mog’s Christmas – Voice Ensemble, Director Robin Shaw
The Amazing Maurice – Voice Ensemble, Director Toby Genkel, Florian Westermann WINNER
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Voice Ensemble, Director Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy
Best Undergraduate Film
The Moonseeker – Dir: Diana Blázquez Martín, Katherine Galley
hyposoMIAOW – Dir: Yunxin Zou
Cortex – Dir: Sena Miyazaki WINNER
Best Postgraduate Film
Death of The Gods – Dir: Leto Stojanovic Meade
Spring Roll Dream – Dir: Mai Vu
The Wolf of Custer – Dir: Tanya J Scott WINNER
Crab Day – Dir: Ross Stringer
Writers Award
Lloyd of the Flies – Gummy Goes Off – Andrew Barnett Jones and Ciaran Murtagh, Dir: Matthew Walker
Kensuke’s Kingdom – Frank Cottrell-Boyce Dir: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry WINNER
The Rubbish World of Dave Spud – Olden Days -Writer and Dir: Edward Foster
Dead End: Paranormal Park – 210 The Watcher’s Test – Hamish Steele, Dir: Liz Whittaker
Lamb Award
Beatriz Diosdado Masa – Blue Zoo
Aiesha Penwarden – Skylark Films/Big Squid Ink Ltd.
Malachi James – Blue Zoo WINNER
Best Children’s Pre-School Series
HEY DUGGEE- The Music Video Badge – Dir: Grant Orchard, Sander Jones
The Very Small Creatures (series 2) – Dir: Lucy Izzard
ODO – Mum – Dir: Piotr Szczepanowicz, Mikolaj Pilchowski WINNER
The Adventures of Paddington (series 3) – Dir: Adam Shaw, Chris Drew
Best Children’s Series
Tweedy & Fluff – Dir: Chris Randall
The Sound Collector – Harp Strings – Dir: Chris Tichborne
The Rubbish World of Dave Spud – Moonbreaker – Dir: Edward Foster WINNER
Lloyd of the Flies – Dir: Matt Walker, Jane Davies
Children’s Choice
Dead End: Paranormal Park – Dir: Liz Whitaker WINNER
Supertato – Dir: Dominic Minns
The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe – The Prince and the Valiant Quest – Dir: Eva Lee Wallberg, Christian Boving-Andersen
Lego City No Limits – (episode 6) – Dir: Ben Steer
Cutting Edge
Beware of Trains – Dir: Emma Calder WINNER
Silly Duck- Dir: Alec Smith
Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway – Dir: Bram Ttwheam, Finbar Hawkins
The Line Experiments – Dir: Antoine Perez
Best Music Video
Carry You by Ruelle– Dir: Flora Caulton
Tell Me Where To Go by JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown– Dir: Peter Beatty, Joseph Boyle
Late Nights’ Music Video – Dir: DEATHBYROMY & ADULT SWIM WINNER
Wildcard (Awarded to animations of any durations deemed as ‘extraordinary’
The Beatles Vs The Stones – Dir: Andrew Kelleher (Dog&Rabbit)
Two Gracious Uncles Smooched To The Beat – Dir: Jon Dunleavy WINNER
Hairy Houdini – Dir: Trevor Hardy
Best Original Music
Mog’s Christmas – Composer David Arnold Dir: Robin Shaw
Tweedy & Fluff – Composers Beth Porter and Ben Plea Dir: Chris Randall
Kensuke’s Kingdom – Composer Stuart Hancock Dir: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry WINNER
Best Animation in a Commercial
Blown Away – Dir: Sarah McDonald
Channel 4: The Great British Bake Off 2023 Official Trailer – Dir: JuanPe Arroyo WINNER
The Lords of Water – Dir: Golden Wolf
Social Good Award
Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Change The Ending – againstallodds WINNER
Ask me how I am – Dir: Zan Barberton, Joseph Clark
Inner Polar Bear – Dir: Gerald Conn
Best International Animated Series
Captain Fall – Dir: Adam Parton, Peter Merryman
Milo – Dir: Chris Capstick
The Tiny Chef Show (Episode Pancakes) – Dir: Rachel Larsen, Chris Tichborne WINNER
Supa Team 4
Best Long Form Animation
A Bear Named Wojtek – Dir: Iain Gardner WINNER
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse – Dir: Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy
Peter and the Wolf – Dir: Stephen McNally, Elliot Dear
Mog’s Christmas – Dir: Robin Shaw WINNER
Best Feature Film
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget – Dir: Sam Fell
A Cat Called Dom – Dir: Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson
Kensuke’s Kingdom – Dir: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry WINNER
Puffin Rock and The New Friends – Dir: Jeremy Purcell
The Amazing Maurice – Dir: Toby Genkel, Florian Westermann
Best Short Form
Christopher at Sea – Dir: Tom CJ Brown
The Debutante – Dir: Elizabeth Hobbs WINNER
All Gucci My Broski – Dir: Harry Plowden
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.