It was a big weekend for awards, especially on the other side of the pond, where the Oscar-nominated films Up and Secret of Kells and TV perennial The Simpsons racked up animation honors.
At the BAFTA awards in London, Disney-Pixar’s Up won best animated feature, beating out Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Up also won the best music category for Michael Giacchino’s score, but lost out in the best sound honor to The Hurt Locker, which dominated the evening.
Avatar won the BAFTA for best visual effects, beating out District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hurt Locker and Star Trek.
Emma Lazenby’s Mother of Many (about a long day in the life of a midwife) won the BAFTA for best animated short film, topping The Gruffalo and The Happy Duckling for the honor.
Kells, meanwhile, took the top honor for an animated feature at the Irish Film & Television Awards, beating out Everywhere from Kavaleer Productions and The Polish Language from Still Films.
Kells director Tomm Moore was named the 2010 Irish Film Board Rising Star.
Closer to Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America presented its awards this weekend. In its sole animation category, for television, the guild had nominated five episodes of The Simpsons and in the end gave the honor to ‘Wedding for Disaster’ by Joel H. Cohen.
The guild also honored the video game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, written by Amy Henning, with its video game writing award.
