The 18th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film, the FMX 2011 and the Animation Production day transformed Stuttgart into the "Animated Capital" for an eventful six days. The extensive Festival programme was an impressive demonstration of how animation is a lot more than just light entertainment. The social relevance and the political topicality of the winning films and numerous other entries to this year's Festival are further proof of this. In total, almost 1,000 films were shown at the Festival. An exciting selection of films and great weather attracted more then 70.000 visitors to both the inner-city cinemas and the open air cinema which this year impressed its audiences with a large LED screen in the centre of Stuttgart's Schlossplatz.

The 18th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film ended on Sunday evening with the presentation of the Trickstar in seven competition categories. Several prizes were awarded in the International Competition: A German film, "The External World" by David O'Reilly, won the Grand Prix and its cash prize of 15,000 Euros donated by the State of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart. The film, with a bizarre humour which tests the limits of political correctness, is both satirical and profound. The Lotte Reiniger Sponsorship Award for Animated Film, sponsored by the MFG Filmförderung Baden-Württemberg (10,000 Euros) went to "The Boy who wanted to be a Lion" by Alois di Leo, in which a visit to the zoo changes the life of a young boy completely. The Lena Weiss Animation Award for Humanity, sponsored by the Meckatzer Löwenbräu (5,000 Euros), was awarded for the first time this year. The winning film is "Der Wechselbalg" ("Changeling") directed by Maria Steinmetz is particularly concerned with motherly love. The SWR Audience Award with a cash prize worth 6,000 Euros went to "The Lost Thing" by Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann. The special award Music for Animation was presented to Corey A. Jackson for the film music for "A Cow who wanted to be a Hamburger" by Bill Plympton, a veteran of the Festival.

The award for the best voice actor in an animated feature film, either the original voice or the German voice-over, with a cash prize of 2,500 Euros was presented for the third time. The winner is Christoph Maria Herbst for his performance as the Gallic cockerel Charles in the German animated film "Animals United".
The Young Animation competition was won by Kirsten Lepore from the USA for her film "Bottle", a wonderful love story between a heap of sand and one of snow.
Once again, the makers of a German animated film took home the Trickstar for the best children's animated film in the competition Tricks for Kids. The child jury, with its eight members, presented the award sponsored by Nickelodeon with a cash prize of 4,000 Euros to Matthias Bruhn for his unusual children's film "Duck, death and the Tulip".
The musical romance "Chico y Rita" set in Havana in the 1940's by Javier Maricsal, Fernando Trueba and Tono Errando won the award for the best animated feature film in the AniMovie category. The cash prize of 2,500 Euros was donated by SUPER RTL.
The film "Muto" by Blu, award-winner at the ITFS 2009, had by far the most loyal fan base for the Trickparade, the online Audience award. The film received the most votes and was awarded the prize of 1,000 Euros donated by the Kulturgemeinschaft.

The German Screenplay Award was presented to Konradin Kunze on Wednesday evening for his screenplay for "The Last World". The cash prize of 2,500 Euros was donated by Telepol GmbH.
Yesterday, Saturday May 7th. France's Pleix won the main prize in the Animated Com Award. The film "Death Penalty" produced by Warm&Fuzzy for Amnesty International is a plea for the abolition of the death sentence, realised in a passionate and technically perfect fashion (cash prize of 10,000 Euros donated by the Fraunhofer Institut IPA, Mackevision and Kolbenschmidt Pierburg).

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Kind regards,

Ulrich Wegenast
Managing Director, Programme

and

Dittmar Lumpp
Managing Director, Organization, Finances