The 44th Annie Awards was held last Saturday at the University of California's Royce Hall in Los Angeles City. After the ceremony, Disney's Oscar front runner, "Zootopia" emerged with six major awards creating momentum for the Academy Awards this coming February 26. However another contender for the Oscars proved that nothing is decide yet as they grabbed the Best Feature Film for the Independent Category.
ASIFA-Hollywood hailed Studio Ghibli's latest creation, "The Red Turtle" as the Best Animated Independent Feature Film as reported by Anime News Network. The film was directed by the Dutch-British director Michael Dudok de Wit, making it the first ever non-Japanese directed film produced by Studio Ghibli. Dudok de Wit's masterpiece bested other nominees: "Long Way North" (directed by Rémi Chayé), "Miss Hokusai" (directed by Keiichi Hara), "My Life As A Zucchini" (directed by Claude Barras) and "Your Name" (directed by Makoto Shinkai) for the award.
The film faced some real tough competition especially with Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name" which boasts a very large fan base. Despite being hailed as the highest grossing of all time following its huge success in Japan and in the International theaters, "Your Name" went on without an award. Shinkai and Dudok de Wit was nominated for a directing award for their respective films but the honor was given to Zootopia's Byron Howard and Rich Moore.
"The Red Turtle" was also nominated for the Outstanding Achievement for Writing, Animated Effects and Music categories. However, "Zootopia" won the writing award while "Moana" won the best animated effects and the best music goes to "The Little Price". Meanwhile Director Mamoru Oshii of "Ghost in the Shell" received the Winsor McCay award for his outstanding contribution to the animation industry.
The Best Animated Feature - Independent award was added last 2015 to recognize features in a wider perspective. According to Japan Today, the nominees for the independent awards comes from the group of feature films that was shown in fewer than a thousand theaters in the United States. ASIFA-Hollywood included the category to acknowledge the independent animators, studios, animes and special productions and let them show the world of their talents.
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