AWARDED FILMS AND GAMES 2026

International competition of feature films

Jury: Steve Woods (Ireland), Jana Čížkovská (CZ), Áron Gauder (Hungary)

Best Feature Film for Children & Young Audience

Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake

• director: Irene Iborra Rizo

• Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Chile, 2025, 70 min

• Technique: Puppet

Jury Statement:
We award a film with empathetic child’s perspective on difficult social issues, sensibility towards mental health, family bondings and power of friendship.

Synopsis:
Twelve-year-old Olivia, her brother Tim and their mother Ingrid find themselves in a difficult situation. Although Ingrid, an actress, does her best to provide for her family and looks for any acting opportunity, they have no money to spare and the bleak reality inevitably affects their lives. In Olivia’s room, overdue electricity bills begin to make themselves felt in other ways than by a non-functioning light – the ground below her feet starts to shake, the floor and the walls crack and even her little brother suspects something is wrong. Olivia decides to play a game with him: when the family is forced to move out of their apartment, she convinces him that they’re all part of the filming of their mother’s latest film and their new friends and neighbours are merely other actors. Although the film, based on a novel by popular Spanish writer Maite Carranza, deals with serious topics, it emphasises hope for a better tomorrow and the support of belonging that hardship can bring out in people. It highlights the importance of interpersonal relationships, explores children’s friendships and presents a story for children and parents alike that will captivate audiences with its sensitivity and social dimension and serve as a basis for discussion with curious children.

Best Feature Film for Adults

Endless Cookie

• director: Seth Scriver, Peter Scriver

• Canada, 2025, 97 minut

• Technique: 2D computer

Jury statement:
We award a film that is genuinely bold in addressing topic of minorities. With honesty, irony and funky visual style it shows us a family album of relatable, quirky and lovable characters that reflects the toxic relationship with Canadian society.

Synopsis:
Endless Cookie is a truly unique animated documentary. Its uniqueness lies in its theme – it’s a portrait of a somewhat unconventional family revealed to the audience through the memories of two stepbrothers. One of them is white and the other, on his mother’s side, is a member of the North American indigenous population. While at home, reminiscing into a microphone, their recording is constantly interrupted by one thing or another. One time it’s a flushing toilet, other times it’s family members (including about ten dogs) who keep leading the story away and disrupting the already anarchistic structure of the film. But thanks to a collage of stories, they gradually open up themes such as exploring one’s own identity and ethnicity, the resistance of the indigenous people to colonisation, social exclusion and bizarre family relationships. The film also manifests an infectious joy stemming from the creative process, whose inner workings are also revealed.

International competition of short films

Jury: Izabela Plucińska (Poland), Dillon Markey (USA), Jana Rogoff (CZ)

Best Short Film

Winter in March

• director: Natalia Mirzoyan

• Estonia, Armenia, Belgium, France, 2025, 16 min

• Technique: stop-motion

• Production: Kadriann Kibus a Armine Harutiunyan

Jury statement:
For the Best Short Film award, we have chosen a film dealing with a subject that has weighed heavily on Europe, but most of all on Ukraine. The story follows the journey of a young couple fleeing Russia soon after the outbreak of the war. Among the many things we admire about this film are its incredible animation technique--which translates emotional turbulences into stitches, seams, and fabrics--its strong female lead, and its overall powerful storytelling.

Synopsis:
For several years now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a cruel reality and an everyday horror for many people. This artistically original and imaginative film follows a young Russian couple on the run. Both feel powerless in their homeland and fear repression by the state. However, their journey soon turns into a surreal nightmare filled with unexpected obstacles and absurd situations.

Special Mention

Desi Oon

• director: Suresh Eriyat

• India, 2025, 8 min

• Technique: stop-motion

• Production: Studio Eeksaurus Productions Pvt. Ltd.

Jury statement:
This film utilizes materials and techniques that elevate the presentation of a meaningful topic. The animation is executed with a gleeful reverence for heritage and history.

Synopsis:
Listen to the story of Indian wool – it will sing it for you in this film. The tradition of the shepherd Balu Mama is brought to life through felt textures. However, this celebration of the black fleece reveals ecological grief: millions of tons of home-produced wool are wasted because the world prefers to import. The story of heritage turns into a chilling warning of cultural and ecological decline.

International competition of student films

Porota: Izabela Plucińska (Polsko), Dillon Markey (USA), Jana Rogoff (ČR)

Best Student film

Floating

• director: Jelena Milunović

• Serbia, Croatia, Germany, 2025, 7 min

• Technique: 2D počítačem

• Producention: Set Sail Films, Adriatic Animation, Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf

Jury statement:
In only seven minutes this film manages to show empathy, imagination, and tenderness about mental illness, while avoiding stereotypical thinking about this subject. The director transforms her painful personal experience into an intimate universe.

Synopse filmu:
The heroine of this sensitively filmed and visually playful film focusing on a serious topic finds out that her father suffers from a mental disorder. His grasp of reality is weakening and he floats through the world like a balloon. How can his daughter deal with this situation, reconnect with her beloved dad and bring him back to the ground?

Special Mention

The Crooked Heads

• director: Jakub Krzyszpin

• Poland, 2025, 8 min

• Technique: 2D computer

• Production: Łódź Film School

Jury statement:
A film that effectively tells a brutal story using animation style and technical mastery in a surprising and impactful way, we award honorable mention this film.

Synopse filmu:
A forgotten Polish neighborhood is shrouded in a coal haze. A young man shaves his head, puts on a tracksuit and veiled in the grey of mines tries to stand up to the shadow of his brother and the weight of his own past. A raw, atmospheric probe into a place where escaping the vicious circle requires more than just changing one’s appearance.

International competition of abstract and non-narrative films

Jury: Jan Šrámek (CZ), Vuk Jevremović (Germany / Croatia), Uri Kranot (Denmark)

Best Abstract and Non-Narrative Film

So Many Different Things

• direction: Sakshi Jain

• USA, 2025, 3 min

• Technique: kresba na papír, 2D počítačem

• Production: Sakshi Jain

Jury statement:
Sometimes, less is everything. This film captured us with tiny, simple pen drawings - the most minimal animation imaginable. It reminded us of something we often forget in the digital age: that animation, at its heart, is just drawings that move. Nothing more is needed. A human being, a pen, and an idea - and you can touch people deeply.

Synopse filmu:
Sometimes simplicity is magic, as proven by this short film by a New York-based Indian filmmaker. Tiny unrelated black-and-white drawings no bigger than a centimetre, which kept piling up in her small sketchbook in the hope of becoming animation someday, finally come to life in a captivating and natural manner accompanied by a rhythmical score.

Special Mention

Cocoon

• director: Alexander Depuis

• USA, 2025, 10 min

• Technique: 3D počítačem, kresba na papír

• Production: Alexander Depuis

Jury statement:
An impressive audiovisual work on the borderline between abstract animation and environmental meditation. The jury was impressed by its distinctive visual style that works in perfect symbiosis with the film’s music.

Synopsis:
Cocoon explores the life forms and zoology of an imaginary world through a series of indecipherable ecological exhibits. It was created in collaboration with musician S. Hollis Mickey as an observational study and a meditation on biological mysteries.

Internation competiton of music videos

Jury: Jan Šrámek (CZ), Vuk Jevremović (Germany / Croatia), Uri Kranot (Denmark)

Best Music Video

Tomoaki Baba: Prime

• director: Hoji Tsuchiya

• Japan, 2025, 4 min

• Technique: stop-motion, puppet, live action, cut out

• Production: Spoon inc.

Jury statement:
This music video had it all: strong, catchy music, a beautiful and playful visual style, and a mysterious story that made us care - even for unusual characters built from papier-mâché and wire. We couldn't look away, and we couldn't forget it.

Synopsis:
A convenience store in a rural town. Everyone in the town likes to drink the same bottled drink. One day in the town, strange incidents start occurring one after another, in which people disappear leaving only their clothes behind. The sheriff investigating the case finds a suspicious man on the night of a full moon.

Special Mention

Johuš Matuš: Pařezy

• director: Julie Černá, Lene Lekše

• Czech Republic, 2025, 2 min 40 s

• Technique: 2D computer, stop-motion, clay

• Production: UMPRUM

Jury statement:
This music video impressed the jury with its fun and creative visual style. The clay stop-motion animation with drawn details is in a wild dialogue with the interpreter’s electronic music and further develops the successful collaboration the creators established during the filming of their previous film.

Synopsis:
On a night walk, a couple in love come across a frog who’s definitely not interested in their attention. The frog, her child and other creatures of the forest rather allow themselves to be carried away by the wild rhythm of the electronic music by Czech performer Johuš Matuš, secretly hoping that the uninvited guests will leave soon. The music video’s co-director Julie Černá worked with Johuš Matuš on her acclaimed film The Stone of Destiny.

International competition of VR films

Jury: Jan Šrámek (CZ), Vuk Jevremović (Germany / Croatia), Uri Kranot (Denmark)

Best VR film

Creation of the Worlds

• Kristina Buožytė, Vitalijus Žukas

• Lithuania, 30 min, 2025

Jury statement:
Immersive technology has given filmmakers powerful new tools. But in the end, it is always the story and the journey that matters. This work made us forget the real world completely. For a brief moment, we traveled through history, fantasy and humanity, surrounded by music, moving through painted forests, mountains and seas, searching for salvation. And we found peace. Just for a moment. A moment we needed more than we expected, in a world that feels anything but peaceful.

Synopsis:
In the beginning, there was a painting. Actually, paintings and music. Creation of the Worlds is a VR experience inspired by visionary paintings and music by Lithuanian genius Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. The poetic journey through various colours, shadows, water surfaces, meadows and cities serves as a metaphor for the human journey to inner maturity.

International competition of videogames

Jury: Veronika Zacharová (CZ), Josh Hollendonner (Austria), Marc Lustigman (France)

Best Concept Art in Videogame

Carimara

• Bastien Mahaut, Bastinus Rex

• 2025

Jury statement:
This game is simply full of heart. We were blown away by the author's approach, which is flawless and consistent from the visuals to the storytelling. You are served a comprehensive experience, which despite its seemingly horror nature does not lack humor and romance.

Synopsis:
A mute little thing with borrowed magic. A house that murmurs back. Ask wrong, and you might wake something that remembers your name.

Best Videogame for Children

Time Flies

• Michael Frei

• Playables, 2025

Jury statement:
This game is not a typical example of the children's game category, and that is exactly why we chose it. We believe that it is important to provide children with a challenge and non-infantile content. Despite its simplicity, it has an existential overtone. We chose this game for its grotesque nature achieved with minimal means.

Synopse hry:
You’re a fly – your life is short and your bucket list is long! Learn an instrument, read a book, become rich, get drunk or make someone smile. And if you don’t feel like pursuing your goals, you can just relax, clean your wings and listen to music. Make the best of the time you have left, because we’re all going to die.

Audience Award - The Liberec Region Award

Dog Ear

• director: Péter Vácz

• Hungary, 2025, 20 min

• Technique: 2D computer

• Production: Gábor Osváth, Gábor Osváth

Synopsis:
Eleven-year-old Berci is home alone. Almost. The only unwelcome company he has is his tiresome dog, just a day after Berci witnessed a major argument between his parents. Berci’s relationship with his loyal friend lays bare the difficult emotional processes taking place within the boy that need to be dealt with.