The winners are chosen through online voting open from November 7th to 30th to all members of the European Animation Awards (EAA) Academy. The winners will be announced on December 8th at the Emile Awards taking place in the Nouveau Siècle concert hall in Lille, France. This is the first year that the Emile Awards are being held. The awards are a 40-country pan-European initiative gathering professional animators within Europe and celebrating diversity and excellence in European animation.

‘We are pleasantly surprised by the nomination. This is a new award and Daniel Šuljić suggested Chintis enter the film into the competition. Daniel is the Awards’ Croatian ambassador. We will both attend the ceremony and are, of course, hoping for the best. It would mean a lot for our countries (Estonia and Croatia) considering that Europe is dominated by French projects. Both of the projects that Manivald shares the nomination with are examples of fantastic design, and both come from France so it is a great honour to be in their company,’ said the Croatian co-producer Draško Ivezić.

Competing alongside Manivald for the Best Background and Character Design in an Animated Short Film Award are two films from France: Peripheria by David Coquard-Dassault and Child Dream by Christophe Gérard.

Manivald is an animated film directed and written by Chintis Lundgren. The film is a Canadian-Croatian-Estonian co-production. The Croatian co-producer is Draško Ivezić (Adriatic Animation) who, along with Chintis Lundgren, is also the film’s co-writer. This is the same team that collaborated on the multiple award-winning animated film Life with Herman H. Rott.

To date, Manivald has screened at numerous festivals and has won many awards around the world. It was chosen as Best Film at this year’s Animafest in the Croatian Film Competition.

All other details are available on the official website of the European Animation Awards.