“At 1 a.m. on Saturday, 2nd October, I attended the online awards ceremony of one of the biggest and oldest animation festivals in the world – the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival, and to my great surprise, I won the award for Best Script. I was all the more amazed given the quality of the films from all over the world in competition. The award is a great boost to my future work and once again proves that the huge amount of time and effort invested in this project has paid off,” says Marko Dješka, director of All Those Sensations in My Belly, on receiving the Craft Award. 

The Competition Short Jury comprised of Anne Koizumi, Kang Min Kim and Jodie Mack, explained their decision with the following statement: “for portraying life, love and finding one’s self, the jury bestows the Craft Award for Best Script to ‘All Those Sensations in My Belly’ directed by Marko Dješka. The script depicts inner and outer events in order to illustrate the transformation and emancipate the change of sex and gender.”

Apart from Dješka’s award-winning short, two other Croatian titles screened in competition programmes at Ottawa IAFF: Marko Tadić’s Events Meant to Be Forgotten and Sunčana Brkulj’s The Tower.

The Ottawa International Animation Film Festival is one of the most important animation festivals in the world. For the second consecutive year, the festival was held online, 22nd Sept – 3rd Oct. It received 2528 film submissions from 34 countries, 107 of which were selected to appear in different competitive sections. The list of all awarded titles is available here. Ottawa IAFF is an Academy Award qualifying festival, meaning the winner of the main festival prize directly enters the race for the Oscars.  

In addition to the award in Canada, All Those Sensations in My Belly almost simultaneously scooped up the Best European Short Film Award at the 3D Wire Festival, held in Segovia, Spain, 24th Sept – 3rd Oct.

The film traces Matia’s transition from male to female gender, while at the same time struggling to have a genuine intimate relationship with a heterosexual man. Marko Dješka did the animation together with Draško Ivezić, Laura Martinović, David Lovrić and Hana Tintor, who also created the design. Dješka also edited the film, while Pedro Marinho created the sound design, and Sofie Birch and Gustavo Lima composed the soundtrack.

The film is an Adriatic Animation production (producer is Draško Ivezić) in co-production with Portuguese animation studio BAP. Sensations had its world premiere at last year’s Anibar International Animation Festival, taking home the award for Best Film in the regional competition, followed by a Special Mention at Animafest Zagreb. The film is distributed by Bonobostudio.

Cover photographs: scene from All Those Sensations in My Belly; Ottawa International Animation Film Festival online awards ceremony