BEST OF ANIMATOR 2025: GRAND PRIX | SHORTS

, Veera Lamminpää, Finland 2024

The supermarket is nearing its closing time, and the last customers are queuing for their turn at the fish counter. The agonizing wait offers a chance for existential reflection and a little song.

She knew this day would come and the choice she’d have to make. But as it finally comes, Maya cannot wrap her head around it. A mole - it’s so small, so insignificant, just a mark...  

How can it be so hard to part from it? Can Maya ever feel whole again when a bit of her is taken away? 

Bianca Scali – Born in 1998 in Paris, Bianca Scali is an animation film directress who graduated in 2023 from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg with her diploma film “it’s just a whole”. Photography, digital and traditional animation, paper, textures or analog processes are some of the many medias Bianca Scali enjoys mixing in her films. 

At a crowded airport, Ahlam, a 14-year old mother, is running away from Baghdad, the only place she's ever known. As she fights the shadows lurking around her, she reflects on her journey to reclaim her life. 

Rand Beiruty is a writer, director and co-founder of Shaghab Films, a production company based in Amman, Jordan. She holds a practice-based Ph.D. revolving around questions of representation and participatory filmmaking from Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. Beiruty is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Beirut Talents, Rotterdam Lab, Locarno Documentary School, ANIDOX:LAB, Film Leader Incubator Asia, Documentary Campus and Ji.hlava Academy. She has pitched her projects on international platforms and received awards from Tribeca Film Institute, Mifa Animation du Monde, Arab Cinema Center and European Network of Young Cinema among others. Her debut feature documentary TELL THEM ABOUT US was awarded best pitch at the Reception of German Film Schools and Haus Am See scholarship. The film celebrated its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2024 and received the ECFA Award for Best European Feature Documentary for Young Audience at the 64th Zlín International Film Festival. 

Ordinary life repeats itself every day. The succession of moments that we repeat over and over again is never the same, and everything changes and wavers. The moment we touch something, our consciousness can go to a place that does not exist anywhere in the past, nor in the future. In an uncertain and fluctuating world, only the feeling of the body touching something, which exists only in this present reality, can be recognised as “now”. That moment is lovely. 

Yoriko Mizushiri – Born in 1984. She creates animations that use body parts and everyday objects as motifs for tactile expression. In addition to making short films, she is also involved in the production of music videos, advertisements, and movies for installations. Her short films have been screened and awarded at festivals worldwide, including Anxious Body, completed in 2021, premiered in the Directors' Fortnight Competition at the 74th Cannes Film Festival and has won 15 international awards. 

In the 1990s, 8-year-old Agata leaves Poland for Belgium. Her perspective transforms the migratory reality into an initiatory experience.

Sylwia Szkiłądź is a director of short animated films. She was born in 1987 in Podlaskie (in Poland), which she left at the age of 8 with her parents to live in Brussels. However, Podlaskie was and remains one of her most important artistic inspirations. Her film productions include: ‘Limaçon et caricoles’ (2012) co-directed with Nim Gamboa, ‘La Soupe aux fraises’ (2014) and ‘Le Renard minuscule’ (2015) co-directed with Aline Quertain. She works freelance on various forms of animation: video clips co-directed with Jessica Poon ‘The Skeleton band’, ‘The Midnight Secret socks party’, animations created with Marion Sellenet for the series ‘Les Chroniques végétales’. She shares her knowledge and experience of animation with children and adults by organising workshops in centres and schools. She currently lives and works in Belgium, France and Poland.