Saturday, February 4th will mark the 44th Annual Annie Awards recognizing the year’s best in animation. This year’s slate of presenters include former Lakers basketball legend, Kobe Bryant; actress Jenna Elfman; animator and film director, Patrick Osborne; Auli’l Cravalho (Moana); animator, author and illustrator, Glen Keane; actor and comedian, Tom Kenny; Paige O’Hara (25th Anniversary of Beauty and the Beast); actor & director, James Hong; directors Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) and Michael Dudok de Wit (The Red Turtle); comedian Stephen Kramer Glickman and actress Chelsea Kane. If you can’t make it to the theater, please watch the Annie Awards live starting at 7 p.m. PST on Saturday, Feb. 4th Right HERE.

“The run up to the Annie Awards is always exciting,” remarked ASIFA-Hollywood Executive Director, Frank Gladstone. “As the voting process concludes and ceremony preparations go into the final stage, the anticipation really builds for the big reveals. 2016 saw a wide variety and sheer number of projects. It was a banner year for animation, and it looks like it will be a banner year for the Annies as well.”

Jenna Elfman and Bugs Bunny

The Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as individual achievement in a total of 36 categories including Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short Subjects and Outstanding Individual Achievements. The Best Animated Features nominations this year are Finding Dory (Pixar Animation Studios), Kubo and the Two Strings (LAIKA), Kung Fu Panda 3 (DreamWorks Animation), Moana (Walt Disney Animation Studios) and Zootopia (Walt Disney Animation Studios). Best Animated Feature – Independent Nominations are Long Way North (Sacrebleu Productions, Maybe Movies, Norlum Studios, France 3 Cinema & 2 Minutes), Miss Hokusai (Production I.G.), My Life As A Zucchini (Rita Productions, Blue Spirit Productions, Gebeka Films, KNM), The Red Turtle (Studio Ghibli, Wild Bunch, Why Not Productions), and Your Name (CoMix Wave Films).

The Annie Awards also honor career achievement and exceptional contributions to animation with its Juried Awards. The Winsor McCay recipients are legendary animator Dale Baer; independent animation champion Caroline Leaf; and influential anime director Mamoru Oshii, for their career contributions to the art form; The Ub Iwerks Award will go to Google Spotlight’s Virtual Reality Platform for technical advancement; and the Special Achievement Award will be presented to Life, Animated, a documentary about animation’s effect on one young autistic man’s journey.

The June Foray Award will be given to Bill & Sue Kroyer for their career-long benevolent, public-spirited influence within the animation community. Certificate of Merit awards will be presented to Leslie Ezeh, ASIFA-Hollywood volunteer coordinator and Gary Perkovac, ASIFA-Hollywood’s office manager.

The black tie event will kick-off at 5 p.m. with Red Carpet arrivals and a VIP champagne reception, followed by the awards ceremony at 7 p.m. and after-party immediately following the show. All events will be held at UCLA’s Royce Hall. For complete event details, please visit www.annieawards.org/event-info. Some VIP tickets are still available. For more information, please visit www.annieawards.org/tickets.

ASIFA-Hollywood is the world’s first and foremost professional organization dedicated to promoting the Art of Animation and celebrating the people who create it. Today, ASIFA-Hollywood, the largest chapter of the international organization ASIFA, supports a range of animation activities and preservation efforts through its membership. Current initiatives include the Animation Archive, Animation Aid Foundation, animated film preservation, special events, classes and screenings.

Created in 1972 by veteran voice talent June Foray, the Annie Awards have grown in scope and stature for the past four decades. For more information on the Annie Awards™, please visit www.annieawards.org. For information about ASIFA-Hollywood, visit www.asifa-hollywood.org.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

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