The 29th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival presented its juried awards this weekend, with Mother of Flies from filmmakers John Adams, Zelda Adams, and Toby Poser (collectively known as the Adams Family) taking home the festival’s top honor, its Cheval Noir Award for Best Film. The occult thriller was also bestowed with a Cheval Noir Award for Best Motion Picture Score.
The winner of the Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation feature film competition was The Girl Who Stole Time, an inventive romantic fantasy produced in China and directed by Yu Ao & Zhou Tienan, featuring an impressive voice cast including Liu Xiaoyu (the Chinese voice for Jinx and Caitlyn in Arcane) and Wang Junkai (The Great Wall). The film made its international premiere at Annecy earlier this summer, following its May theatrical debut in China.
The jury statement declared: “For its great ambition, its gripping plot twists, its ability to surprise with its variety of tone changes, the risks taken in terms of narrative form, and the richness of its visual presentation, the Satoshi Kon 2025 jury awards the Best Feature Film prize to The Girl Who Stole Time by directors Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan.”
The Satoshi Kon Award for the “Gold” animated short went to Nata Metlukh for Off-Time, a sketchbook 2D co-production of the U.S., Japan and Ukraine. The dialog-free short previously won the Grand Prix from the Golden Kuker International Animation Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, and made its North American premiere at Fantasia.
The jury lauded Off-Time “For its lively animation, its designs, and its drawn universe that delighted all three of us, its engaging sound design, its reflection on time, accelerationism and the attention and care required to be in touch with oneself, with others and with all of life[.]”
The 2025 Satoshi Kon Animation Jury comprised Rachel Samson (President), Sam Chou and Chimwemwe Miller.
As previously announced, one of the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award was bestowed this year on Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Samurai Jack, Hotel Transylvania and Primal. Fantasia hosted the Canadian Premiere of Tartakovsky’s new R-rated animated feature Fixed (on Netflix from August 13) as its Closing Film. The other Cheval Noir Career Achievement recipient was composer Danny Elfman, known for his work on Tim Burton projects including Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Wednesday and stop-motion favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick.
See the full list of juried award winners at fantasiafestival.com.
Satoshi Kon for Excellence in Animation Competition 2025
Best Animated Feature – The Girl Who Stole Time – Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan (China)
Qian Xiao, a cheerful girl from a fishing village, dreams of becoming an actress in the big city. On her way towards the metropolis, a sudden crash changes everything. Fortunately, she survives—and as a bonus, she obtains the Time Dial, a mysterious pendant which gives her the ability to control time. As she excitedly experiments with her newfound power, Qian Xiao becomes the target of a criminal cabal. Seventeen, an assassin from that group, enters her life. What adventure will unfold when a cold-faced, obsessive-compulsive killer and a carefree village girl cross paths?
Special Jury Mention – I Am Frankelda (Soy Frankelda) – Arturo Ambriz and Roy Ambriz (Mexico)
Recently orphaned and rebellious by nature, Francisca Imelda finds consolation in her solitary pastime, writing tales of fear and fantasy. The words she scribbles, however, are more than just a balm for her hurting heart. They are the connective tissue linking the real world we recognize around us to another one. Just as day needs night and light needs shadow, the 19th-century Mexico where she resides exists in parallel to a world of fiction, imagination, dreams … and nightmares. Herneval, the young owl-boy prince of that land, is drawn to her voice and seeks to breach the wall between the two worlds, while his parents contend with a festering conspiracy that could spell disaster for both. When the two young ones meet, a bond between them begins, but can they prevent everything, truth and fiction alike, from being torn apart?
Best Animated Short / Bronze – My Organs Lying on the Ground – Shinobu Soejima (Japan)
We eat grain born from the soil, and what we excrete returns to the soil, from which grain is born again. We live in this cycle of inside and outside. Your internal organs may become other people’s internal organs, or other people’s internal organs may become your internal organs. You are the other and the other world is you… Could such a multi-peaceful way of thinking be a way of rethinking the relationship between the subject and the other? By portraying the idea of inside-out/outside-in cyclical systems, the work seeks to subvert binary structures such as subject and object, inside and outside, and visualizes the muddled relationship between our bodies and the land itself. As technologies such as artificial intelligence and the information world continue to intervene in our lives, can we regain trust in our bodies?
Best Animated Short / Silver – Éiru – Giovanna Ferrari (Ireland)
The runt of her Celtic clan, Éiru wants nothing more than to be a mighty warrior. Her slight size, however, is why she’s the only one who can delve into the village well when it runs dry — bringing her face to face with an ancient goddess. Irish folklore and universal wisdom inform this new short work from celebrated animation studio Cartoon Saloon (Wolfwalkers, The Secret of Kells), in collaboration with Herstory, an initiative to extol heroic women of history and myth alike. – Rupert Bottenberg
Best Animated Short / Gold – Off-Time – Nata Metlukh U.S.A., Japan, Ukraine)
For a harried tech worker, achieving any semblance of a work-life balance seems exhaustingly elusive — until time itself becomes unbalanced. A surreal celebration of the moments that really matter from noted GIF artisan Nata Metlukh, a.k.a. notofagus, developed during an artist residency with Hiroshima Animation Season. – Rupert Bottenberg
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