Tag Archives: Véronique Encrenaz

Triggerfish honoured with MIFA award

South Africa’s Triggerfish Animation Studios has received the MIFA Animation Industry Award at Annecy 2021 in celebration of African animation.

Stuart Forrest with Triggerfish’s award

The Cape Town animation company was recognised for its contribution to African animation, its vision to grow both locally and globally, its mentorship scheme for African creators as well as its academy and online courses.

“This is to highlight the pioneering role that the company has played in animation in South Africa, and Africa most widely,” said Véronique Encrenaz, head of MIFA, who handed the 2021 award to Triggerfish CEO Stuart Forrest.

“We have decided to award Triggerfish this year when African animation is celebrating in Annecy. This is to highlight the pioneering role that the company has played in animation in South Africa and Africa most widely. To highlight its non-stop contribution to develop and to produce, to structure and to share, to encourage and to mentor African professionals and artists. These are values we share at MIFA.

“Triggerfish has played a role to structure an industry and convince all public and private partners of the necessity to build an eco-system that will serve a whole community of professionals in animation in SA and across the African continent.”

Forrest added: “Thank you for acknowledging Triggerfish this way. We are really privileged to be collaborating with some top African talent to bring new stories to the world and we are very excited over the next two years to bring you more amazing work.”

“We’ve been very fortunate to come of age in a time when the world really is looking for other voices. We know animation has a unique ability to cross boundaries, so we’re so excited to share the new wave of groundbreaking African creatives with the world.”

Triggerfish productions Khumba and Stick Man are two of the closing night films at MIFA, on Saturday June 19.

In 2016, Triggerfish won the Cristal award for best TV production at the Annecy/MIFA awards for Stick Man. It also received accolades at the Banff World Media Festival, the Shanghai International Film & TV Festival and two British Animation Awards.

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Annecy 2020 to honour African animation

Next year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival & Market in France is set to celebrate African animation and showcase content from African artists.

Mickaël Marin

African animation will be the core of the 2020 event, alongside the Institute Français’s Africa 2020 season.

Event organiser CITIA’s CEO Mickaël Marin said: “This tribute is a central point of many of our recent initiatives, the creation of Animation du Monde in 2015. Pitch sessions for projects from emerging countries as well as the creation of competitive category Perspectives in 2017 are two solid examples of our desire to provide increased visibility to these countries and to promote their astounding creativity.”

Véronique Encrenaz, head of MIFA, the market part of the event, said: “The presence of African studios and artists is increasingly high at MIFA and we would like to showcase it further by creating a special pavilion, as well as a series of meetings and project presentations.”

Marcel Jean, the festival’s artistic director, said: “We would like to assist productions from the entire continent and bring them into the spotlight, from pioneering works to contemporary young filmmakers, from Maghreb to South Africa, and Senegal to Egypt. In the development of this African animation structure, we intend to collaborate with local organisations and call on African programmers. This will be the opportunity for festival-goers at Annecy to discover a still far too little-known cinematography.”

There will be various screenings, meeting and conferences that will enable participants learn about diverse aspects of production in Africa.

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