The French animated fantasy indie film I Lost My Body (J’ai perdu mon corps) directed by Jérémy Clapin won Best Feature – Independent at the 47th Annual Annie Awards. I Lost My Body which is nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar, and is now streaming on Netflix also won the award for Writing in an Animated Feature.
The film originally premiered in the International Critics’ Week section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Nespresso Grand Prize, becoming the first animated film to do so in the section’s history.
Based on Guillaume Laurant’s novel “Happy Hand,” the film takes place in a Parisian laboratory, where a severed hand escapes its unhappy fate and sets out to reconnect with its body. During a hair-raising escapade across the city, the extremity fends off pigeons and rats alike to reunite with pizza boy Naoufel. Its memories of Naoufel and his love for librarian Gabrielle may provide answers about what caused the hand’s separation, and a poetic backdrop for a possible reunion between the three.
Overall, Netflix was the big winner at the Annie Awards, winning top honors in 18 categories, including Best Feature – Klaus; Character Animation in an Animated Feature – Sergio Martins for Klaus; Character Design in an Animated Television/Media Production – Keiko Murayama for Carmen Sandiego; Directing in An Animated Feature – Sergio Pablos for Klaus; Music in an Animated Television/Media Production – Rob Cairns for Love, Death & Robots; and Editorial in an Animated Feature – Klaus.
How to Train Your Dragon Homecoming (DreamWorks Animation) won Best Animated Special Production; Best Animated Short Subject – Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days (Ciclope Filmes, National Film Board of Canada, Les Armateurs); Best Animated TV/Media Commercial – The Mystical Journey of Jimmy Page’s ’59 Telecaster (Nexus Studios); Best General Audience Animated TV/Media Production BoJack Horseman Eps. The New Client (Torante Productions, LLC for Netflix); and Best Animated TV/Media Production for Children Disney Mickey Mouse Eps. Carried Away (Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel; Best Animated TV/Media Production for Preschool Children Ask the StoryBots Eps. Why Do We Have To Recycle? (JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix); and Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Live Action Production Avengers: Endgame (Weta Digital).
The evening began with a special tribute to Richard Williams, Canadian–British animator, director, and writer, best known as animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), for which he won two of his three Academy Awards (the third for A Christmas Carol in 1973), and for his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler (1993).
Juried Awards were presented honoring unparalleled achievement and exceptional contributions to animation. Three Winsor McCay Award recipients were selected by the ASIFA-Hollywood Board of Directors for their exemplary industry careers – Satoshi Kon (posthumously), Japanese manga artist, director, animator and screenwriter on the now classic films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika; Henry Selick, stop motion director, producer and writer, best known for directing the stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline; and Ron Clements & John Musker, animators, animation directors, screenwriters, producers and one of Walt Disney Animation Studio’s leading director teams with nearly 40 years of animation credits, from The Little Mermaid to Moana and many others, too numerous to mention.
The June Foray Award was presented to Jeanette Bonds, writer, independent animator, and co-founder and director of GLAS Animation; and the Ub Iwerks Award was presented to Jim Blinn, computer scientist who first became widely known for his early work in computer animation, and as a graphics expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), particularly on the pre-encounter animations for the Voyager project.
The Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as individual achievement in a total of 36 categories from best feature, best feature – independent, production design, character animation, and effects animation to storyboarding, writing, music, editing and voice acting, and have often been a predictor of the annual Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.