Animator Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues bagged the Crystal for best feature (numero uno award) at the 32nd Annecy International Animation Film Festival held in France. This year definitely belongs to New York indie animators scooped the top two prizes. The second and third postions were occupied by Idiots & Angels (US) and Die Drei Räuber (Germany) respectively. Annecy is the industry’s leading international competitive festival that brings to you the best animation films around the world. The films selected and screened here belong to 4 categories: Feature films, Short films, Commissioned and TV films and Graduation films. Each variety employs different animation techniques in its production.
This year’s winner Sita Sings the Blues entwines the tale of a modern woman Sita and her husband Rama, with episodes from Ramayana ( the Indian epic) in a witty fashion. The plot involves around the life of this modern woman whose husband moves to India and then dumps her by email! The film has a feminist streak as the female character Sita is given voice while the male character Rama is shown as a strong but ‘silent’ man. Through highly stylized characters, the animation film beautifully reveals the pathos of a smart, young and modern woman being dumped by her spouse. Paley has cleverly blended traditional wisdom from ancient epic with contemporariness. She jocularly describes her film to be the greatest break-up story ever told! Her choice to tell this story through animation reflects her sensibilities for had the same story been shot in conventional non-animated manner…the effect on the audience perhaps would have been dull. It’s a must see animation indeed!!
Via EuroNews
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