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Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai Film Wins Annie Award for Best Animated Independent Feature
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced the winners for its 46th Annual Annie Awards on Saturday, and Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai anime film won the Best Animated Independent Feature category. Hosoda himself was in attendance and accepted the award. He explained how his own children inspired the story for the film in his acceptance speech.
Other films nominated in the category were Studio 4°C and Ankama's MFKZ (Mutafukaz), Ce Magnifique Gâteau !, Ruben Brandt, Collector, and Tito and the Birds.
Mirai also received a nomination in the "Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production" category, but Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman won the award for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Canadian game developer Eidos Montréal's Shadow of the Tomb Raider game received a nomination in the Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Video Game category. Japanese game developer and publisher Square Enix published the game. Adrian Miguel and Adrian Garcia won the award for Nomada Studio's GRIS game.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won the Best Animated Feature category this year.
ASIFA-Hollywood added the Best Animated Independent Feature award for the 2016 awards in order to "recognize not only features in wide release, but also the independent animators, international studios, anime and special productions that might not otherwise get the attention they deserve." Sunao Katabuchi's In This Corner of the World and Kenji Kamiyama's Napping Princess were nominated for the award last year, but no anime received awards. Production I.G's Miss Hokusai, Michael Dudok de Wit and Studio Ghibli's The Red Turtle, and Makoto Shinkai's your name. were all nominated in the category in 2016, and The Red Turtle won the award.
The Annie Awards recognize outstanding achievement in animation.
Sources: Annie Awards, Deadline
