The first ever Irish Animation Awards took place in Dingle Skelligs Hotel in Dingle on Friday, March 13 with categories covering television, short films and craft awards - with 12 categories in total.
As IFTN previously reported, Cartoon Saloon’s two-time Oscar nominee Tomm Moore (‘The Secret of Kells’, ‘Song of the Sea’) received The Murakami Award at the awards ceremony on Friday night.
Another big winner on the night was Brown Bag Films whose productions scooped up three awards in the categories of Best Animated Pre-School Series (‘Henry Hugglemonster’), Best Design/Art Direction (Stephen O' Connor & Stephen Robinson for ‘Bing’) and Best Director of an Animated Series (Nicky Phelan and Jeroen Jaspaert for ‘Bing’).
IFB funded animated short ‘Deadly’, directed by Aidan McAteer and produced by Shannon George – both of Kavaleer Productions – won for Best Animated Short Film. ‘Deadly’ previously won the Don Quijote Award for Animation in Short Film at the 2014 Galway Film Fleadh.
The winner in the Best International Short Film category was Daisy Gould’s ‘Outlines’.
In the writing categories, Andrew Brenner of Geronimo Productions won Best Writer for Pre-School Animation for his work on ‘Punky’ while Trevor J Colgan of JAM Media won Best Writer of an Animated Series for ‘Roy’.
ShipAntics: The Legend of The Kiki Beast (Studio POWWOW) won for Best Animation for Apps and Gaming while Bord Gais Networks ‘Tommy McAnairey’ (Piranha Bar) won the award for Best Animation.
Sixteen South’s ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ won for Best Music/Sound Design while Kite Entertainment’s ‘Brain Freeze’ won the Kid's Choice Award for Best Animated Series.
There was success also for Julie Rush of Ballyfermot College of Further Education as her film ‘Wounded’ won for Best Student Film.