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Julia Donaldson’s “Romeo and Juliet”-inspired story “The Smeds and The Smoos” is set to be adapted for a BBC Christmas special starring Oscar-nominee Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”), “Bridgerton’s” Adjoa Andoh and comedian Bill Bailey.

Oscar-nominated production company, who have previously adapted nine of Donaldson’s children’s books for the BBC, will once again take the helm on the project, which will also be based on Axel Scheffler’s original illustrations, with Blue Zoo Animation Studio providing animation services.

Donaldson and Scheffler are the duo behind iconic children’s stories including “The Gruffalo.”

Daniel Snaddon (“The Snail and the Whale”) and Samantha Cutler will direct based on a screenplay by Julia Smuts Louw. René Aubry is composing the music.

“The Smeds and The Smoos” tells the story of two aliens – Bill and Janet – from warring families who fall in love. Faced with their tribes’ disapprobation,...

‘Stillwater’ is eOne’s first theatrical release since October 2020.

Augustine Frizzell’s film of Jojo Moyes’ book The Last Letter From Your Lover leads the new titles in UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend, looking to work towards the result of previous Moyes’ adaptation Me Before You.

Released by Studiocanal in 550 locations, The Last Letter From Your Lover follows an ambitious journalist who attempts to solve the mystery of a forbidden affair at the centre of a series of secret love letters from 1964. A co-production between the UK’s Blueprint Pictures and Canada’s The Film Farm, it is being released by Netflix in the US.

Supporting the U.K. animation industry is one of the key priorities for the recently launched £7 million ($9.77 million) U.K. Global Screen Fund (Ukgsf), which is being administered by the British Film Institute.

Each of the three key funding strands of the Ukgsf – international business development, co-production investment, and international distribution (see separate story for details) – are accessible to animation companies.

In many ways, the ambition of the Ukgsf to boost global exports of U.K. screen content and to foster international collaborations perfectly fits with the experience of the animation sector.

Often overlooked compared with its live action cousins, animation is one of the most internationally focused of the U.K.’s screen industries.

That’s very much out of necessity. At a time when animation producers can likely secure a maximum of 25% of budget for a commission from a U.K. broadcaster, companies have had to reach out...

This number will increase as Cannes, Venice and other summer festival titles are added to the mix alongside studio releases.

French cinemas reopen this Wednesday (May 19) after lying dark for six months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the country’s 100-plus distributors rushing to set theatrical dates for an estimated backlog of 400 stalled films.

As a result, French cinemagoers will have access to the richest and most diverse offering of films in the world over the coming months, spanning festival titles, local mainstream comedies and dramas, world cinema and studio blockbuster fare, as the summer advances.

As of May...

Pixar’s “Soul” continued its awards season dominance on Friday by winning seven Annie Awards, including feature. The jazzy look at the before-life also won for music, writing (Pete Docter. Mike Jones and Kemp Powers), character animation (Michal Makarewicz), FX, storyboarding (Trevor Jimenez) and editorial.

“Wolfwalkers,” from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Prods. for Apple and Gkids, took home five Annies, including independent feature. Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart picked up the Annie for feature direction and the film also won for character design (Federico Pirovano), production design and voice acting (Eva Whittaker as Mebh Óg MacTíre). Cartoon Saloon, along with Mother, also scored an award for its sponsored project “There’s a Monster in My Kitchen” for Greenpeace.

The top TV winner of the night was the Netflix series “Hilda,” which took home awards for TV/Media for Children, character animation (David Laliberté) and editorial (John McKinnon).

“Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal...

Pixar’s “Soul” and Cartoon Saloon’s “Wolfwalkers” swept Asifa-Hollywood’s 48th Annie Awards Friday night, with the former grabbing seven animated feature awards and the latter capturing five (plus the sponsored prize for “There’s a Monster in My Kitchen”).

The Black-led, existential fantasy “Soul” took best feature, writing, music, character animation, FX, storyboarding, and editorial. The hand-drawn Irish folk tale “Wolfwalkers” (co-produced by Apple Original Films) countered with best indie feature, direction (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart), production design, character design, and voice acting (Eva Whittaker as Mebh).

Before sweeping the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and PGAs, “Soul” was already in a good position to win the Oscar. Now, after winning the top Annie prize, “Soul” is in a very comfortable position, with six of the last nine Annie winners agreeing with the Academy. This would mark Pixar’s 11th Oscar win for animated feature, and Docter’s third,...

Soul and Wolfwalkers were the big winners at the 48th annual Annie Awards for animation, which were doled out in a virtual ceremony tonight. The Disney/Pixar juggernaut strutted away with seven trophies, including Best Feature, while the “relatively small European movie” — as the filmmakers described it — snagged five wins, including Indie Feature.

After they battled it out all night, both will square off for the Academy Award next weekend against Onward, Over the Moon and A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon — all three of which went home empty-handed tonight.

On the TV side, big winners included Hilda, which picked up three awards, and Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, which scooped a pair. Big Mouth took the writing prize, and — from a galaxy far, far away — The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Clone Wars picked up one prize apiece.

So just how will tonight’s wins for Soul and/or Wolfwalkers...

Pixar’s “Soul” and Cartoon Saloon’s “Wolfwalkers” were the dominant films at the 48th annual Annie Awards Friday, with “Soul” winning seven awards and “Wolfwalkers” winning five.

“Soul” won in the Best Feature category and took additional awards for its writing, music, FX, character animation, storyboards and editorial. “Wolfwalkers” won for Best Indie Feature as well as for directing, character design, production design and voice acting.

No other feature film won an Annie, which is given out by the International Animated Film Society, Asifa-Hollywood. Since the Academy Awards started a Best Animated Feature category in 2001, the Annies winner in the Best Feature category has gone on to win the Oscar 13 times in 19 years, including four times in the last five years.

Pete Docter’s “Soul” was already considered a prohibitive frontrunner in the Oscar race, with Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s “Wolfwalkers” thought to be the only film...

Every year, ShortsTV brings the best in short film to the big screen, with a presentation of Oscar nominated shorts in the Animated, Live-Action and Documentary arenas. While movie theaters only recently reopened in Los Angeles and Orange County—with Covid cases, hospitalizations and fatalities on the descent—the distributor has already set theatrical and virtual premiere dates in both counties, for the Oscar Nominated Shorts of 2021.

ShortsTV’s live-action and animated short film programs will be released theatrically and virtually on Friday, April 2. Its documentary program, meanwhile, will become available virtually on April 2, with a theatrical opening scheduled for April 9.

Nominees in the category of Best Live-Action Short Film that will screen for LA audiences include Feeling Through (directed by Doug Roland), Oscar Isaac-starrer The Letter Room (Elvira Lind), The Present (Farah Nabulsi), Two Distant Strangers (Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe) and White Eye (Tomer Sushan).

Doc...

Filmmakers Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon are no strangers to the world of adapting the vividly illustrated children’s books of Julia Donaldson for animation. They’ve adapted “Room on the Broom,” “The Gruffalo” and “Stick Man,” and this time they’re vying for Oscar short animated film and Annie Awards consideration with another beloved story, “The Snail and the Whale.”

Produced in a stop-motion/CG hybrid style, the story is a simple one — a snail yearns to see the world, so it catches a ride on the back of a whale.

In one sequence, the snail is looking up at the night sky filled with stars. Lang says, “This shot pretty much sums up for me what our film is about: confronting the vastness of the universe and our feelings of insignificance, with a little help from our friends.”

Snaddon adds that the idea behind the shot was to...

When adapting “The Snail and the Whale” into a short film, Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon had to find ways of stretching out the very short story into a nearly 30 minute short film. Both of them found different ways of bringing more to the story. For Lang, he added a scene where the snail initially tries to hitch a ride with on a boat but nearly gets eaten by seagulls. “What that helped us to establish was that she was trying, she had the drive to go out there. But it’s a dangerous world and this establishes stakes as well. She’s a little snail but she’s also brave,” he tells us in our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video above). Snaddon echoes these thoughts and adds that he wanted to help accentuate the beauty of the story as well as the characters. “It’s not really a comedy.

The 48th Annie Awards are going to be held in a little over a month on April 16th, virtually, of course. However, today we have their nominations, which were led by the duo of Soul and Wolfwalkers. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature has long seemed to be a battle between those two films, so that makes sense. Will one get a boost here next month and have an Oscar advantage? Stay tuned to find out… Here are the Annie Award nominees: Best Feature Onward, Pixar Animation Studios Soul, Pixar Animation Studios The Croods: A New Age, DreamWorks Animation The Willoughbys, Netflix Presents A Bron Animation Production in association with Creative Wealth Media Trolls World Tour, DreamWorks Animation Best Indie Feature A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Studiocanal and Aardman present in association with Anton Capital Entertainment, an Aardman Production for Netflix Calamity Jane, Maybe Movies On-Gaku: Our Sound,...

Pixar’s “Soul” and Apple/Gkids’s “Wolfwalkers” may have topped the Annie Award nominations with 10 each, but it was Netflix that walked away with the most nominations overall, picking up 40 across an array of projects.

Netflix scored six nominations each for its features “The Willoughbys” and “Over the Moon,” and three for “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.” Other Netflix projects receiving nominations include “Hilda,” “The Midnight Gospel,” “Bojack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” “Alien Xmas,” “Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy,” “The Christmas Chronicles 2,” “The Umbrella Academy,” “Bna,” “The Great Pretender,” “Blood of Zeus,” “Trash Truck,” “Buddi,” “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power,” “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers,” “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” “Tales of Arcadia: Wizards,” “Dragons Rescue Riders,” “Cops and Robbers” and “If Anything Happens I Love You.”

The next biggest studio tallies were Pixar and DreamWorks Animation with 20 nominations each, followed by Apple/Gkids with 10, Disney with nine,...

Two very different animated features lead the way as the 48th annual Annie Awards nominations were announced today. Disney/Pixar’s Soul and Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers scored 10 noms apiece ahead of the virtual trophy show on April 16. Read the full list of nominees in 31 categories below.

Wolfwalkers, a “relatively small European movie,” as the filmmakers described it — is rooted in the history of 1650s Ireland, while Soul follows a middle school music teacher’s journey to “the Great Beyond” via “the Great Before.”

Soul will vie for the marquee Best Feature prize at the Annies, going up against another Pixar pic — Onward, which scooped seven noms — along with Netflix’s The Willoughbys and a pair of DreamWorks Animation sequels: The Croods: A New Age and Trolls World Tour. Willoughbys and Croods picked up six noms each today, and Trolls rocked away with four.

Wolfwalkers is up for the Best...

Pixar’s ethereal “Soul” and Cartoon Saloon’s exquisitely hand-drawn “Wolfwalkers” — the two animated Oscar frontrunners — both grabbed 10 nominations each at Asifa-Hollywood’s 48th Annie Awards (to be streamed live on April 16). Pixar collected another seven nominations from “Onward” to dominate the feature competition.

“Soul” and “Wolfwalkers” are both expected to come away with the top prize from their respective best feature and best indie feature categories, but they compete head to head for direction (Pete Docter and Kemp Powers vs. Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart), FX, character animation, character design, production design, score, storyboarding, and writing. “Soul” was additionally nominated for editorial, and “Wolfwalkers” for voice acting. But Jamie Foxx, who voiced “Soul’s” jazz pianist, Joe Gardner, was surprisingly overlooked.

Scoring six nominations were Netflix’s “Over the Moon” (directed by Disney legend Glen Keane) and “The Willoughbys,” and DreamWorks’ “Croods: A New Age.” But Keane’s gorgeous...

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. Eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and will be displayed next to revision date.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective

Draft>>>Pre Season>>>Regular Season>>>Post Season

2021 Oscars Predictions:

Best Animated Short Film

Updated: Feb. 25, 2021

Awards Prediction Commentary: The Academy announced the shortlist for the animated short contenders, and they produced an interesting crop of selections. Netflix is placing all their power and influence behind the emotional “If Anything Happens I Love You.

Those winners of the short film categories at the Oscars can be really difficult to predict but trying to foretell which ones will get nominated can be even trickier. But there’s no need to fear fellow Derbyites! Now that the shortlist for the short film categories has been unveiled, we want to give you the best chance at making the correct choices in our predictions center. To help accomplish that, we’re giving you all the details on the 10 finalists for Best Animated Short Film.

“Burrow” – A young rabbit who’s trying to build her dream burrow, becomes embarrassed when she repeatedly digs into a neighbor’s home by accident.

“Genius Loci” – A young loner starts to see the chaos around her in a hallucinogenic manner.

“If Anything Happens I Love You” – Two parents seek to overcome a tragedy that has permanently changed their family.

“Kapaemahu” – Four stones with...

Two Pixar shorts, including one in which a young man struggles to tell his parents that he is gay, have made the shortlist in the Oscars Best Animated Feature category, the Academy announced on Tuesday.

“Out,” by Steven Clay Hunter, is the first Disney or Pixar movie to feature a gay main character. It made the shortlist along with another film from Pixar, Madeline Sharafian’s “Burrow.” Three other Pixar films — “Float,” “Loop” and “Wind” — were submitted but did not make the list. The company has won two of the last four Oscars in the category.

Other shortlisted films in the animated category include DreamWorks Animation’s “To Gerard”; “The Snail and the Whale,” from the filmmakers behind the 2010 nominee “The Gruffalo”; Netflix’s “If Anything Happens I Love You,” about the aftermath of a school shooting; and a number of films from around the world, including Iceland’s “Yes-People,...

The road to the 2021 Academy Awards hit an important marker today with the announcement of nine shortlists for the following categories: International Feature Film, Documentary, Original Score, Original Song, Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Live-Action Short Film, Documentary Short Subject, and Animated Short Film. Just as in previous years, members of the Academy will select from these reduced lists of contenders in each category the nominees for the 2021 Oscars. This year marked the third year in a row the Academy released nine of its shortlists on the same day.

The nominations for the 2021 Oscars will be announced Monday, March 15, ahead of the 93rd Academy Awards telecast on Sunday, April 25. The Academy pushed back the ceremony this year in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Films that were set for a theatrical release but headed to streaming and/or PVOD instead are eligible for Oscar consideration. The Oscar cutoff date for...

Music, score, visual effects, make-up and hairstyling, short film shortlists also unveiled.

The Academy has announced the 15 international features and 15 documentary shortlists that have made the cut as it unveiled nine Oscar shortlists on Tuesday (February 9).

Switzerland’s My Little Sister and Greece’s Apples are notable absentees from an international list dominated by Europe with seven contenders, followed by Latin America on three, Africa and Asia on two apiece, and the Middle East with one.

All shortlisted films proceed to the phase one voting stage that runs from March 5-9 prior to the nominations announcement on March 15. The 93rd...