Top Ten Animated Shorts: No's 1 & 2

And now to my top two films of the year. Deciding between the two has been an impossible task because they are so very different. One is so emotional, the other uplifting. Perhaps it is our grim UK winter that draws me to the latter......
No 2: Kunio Katô: La Maison en Petits Cubes . The Japanese director was awarded the Academy Award for his intensely moving film about a man marooned in a flooded world, stoically rebuilding his house above the rising waters before revisiting the layers it was built upon. In doing so he remembers his family as they too proceed through life. The old man smoking his pipe in a reducing room, donning his diving gear, setting a table for two will linger in your memory in a film that is distinctive in style.


No.1: Emanuel Luzatti, Luigi Berio and Stefano Cabrera: Genova Sinfonia della Città might seem a strange choice to top this year's list of favourite films. It is a commissioned film extolling the virtues of Genoa as a tourist destination. The late Emanuel Luzzatti's gorgeous paintings celebrate the city's rich history to a glorious soundtrack from Stefano Cabrera. Director Luigi Berio uses a traditional cutout technique. I was effulgent when first reviewing this 2005 film. So simply revel in the pageantry, the exuberance and glorious sense of history. A feast of a movie, it lacks the narrative drive of Kunio's work but more than makes up in gorgeous spectacle. What animation is all about.

There are a number of other awards I should make before the year ends:

Best Movie for Children:

Yoann Lemoine: The Balloon - what happens to discarded balloons

• Sheldon Cohen: I Want A Dog - desperately seeking a dog and singing as she goes
• Henry Selick: Moongirl - how the moon works
• Joseph Mann: The Chimney Sweep - boy meets sweep on the roof

Big Studio Production

Doug Sweetland: Presto (Pixar) - big studios make magic as of old

Best Music Video

Yuval and Merav Nathan: Her Morning Elegance - stunning stop motion photography, design, actress, song and would have made top ten

• Katy Davis: Stay in My Memory - open the magic book and 1651 drawings fly out

Best Classic Animation

Jack Kinney: Der Fuehrer's Face - fight Hitler by making him look funny

• Robert Cannon: Gerald McBoing-Boing - minimalist animation done oh so well

Favourite Ad

Psyops: UPS Store - corrugated epics not made from card

• François-Xavier Goby and Matthieu Landour (Nexus): All Together Now - countries pulling together for the Olympic spirit

For Technical Excellence

Tyson Ibele: Hemlock - 3D realism but he's not real

Enjoy your New Year!