Rich Webber’s “BENCH” Wins Top Honors at LAAF 2020

Rich Webber’s “BENCH” Wins Top Honors at LAAF 2020

December 6th, 2020

Jerry Beck

The Los Angeles Animation Festival (LAAF), which was an online-competition-only event this year, announced its winners Sunday night – with top honors – BEST OF THE FEST and BEST COMEDY SHORT – going to Rich Webber’s beautifully paced and hilarious short Bench (U.K).

Canada’s Ya Ma won BEST FEATURE for his powerful documentary Up We Soar. Swedish animator Björn Granberg Ahlmark won BEST CHARACTER BASED SHORT for his stylish Art Is Angst and Chinese animator Mulan Fu won BEST STUDENT CHARACTER BASED SHORT for her touching film Beautiful.

“Up We Soar”

Judging this year’s animation shorts, features and scripts were episodic director/showrunner Otis Brayboy, animator David B Fain, co-director of CalArts Experimental Animation program Maureen Furniss, Production Designer / Director Paul Harrod, Six Point Harness animation director Ron Myrick, animation/comedy writer Jared Nigro, award-winning filmmaker Joanna Priestley (including last year’s feature winner North of Blue), filmmaker and Cal State U. Long Beach faculty member Walter Santucci, Oscar winning co-directors Alison Snowden and David Fine, professor and independent filmmaker Sheila Sofian, animation director & creator of Stick Figure Theater Robin Steele, co-founder of FilmFest Distribution Nadav Streett, pop culture journalist and author Pat Jankiewicz and LAAF co-directors John Andrews and Miles Flanagan.

“Beautiful”

Other major winners include:
STUDENT COMEDY SHORT: DOOMSDAY PRINCESS(Alyssa Ragni)
STOP MOTION SHORT: THE EPHEMERAL ORPHANAGE (Lisa Barcy)
EXPERIMENTAL SHORT: RANA (Mario Kreill, Cristina Dezi, Isabel Wiegand)
CGI SHORT: MIME YOUR MANNERS (Kate Namowicz, Skyler Porras)
DESIGN: BLINDSIGHT (Danil Krivoruchko)
MOTION GRAPHICS: LA TRANCE (Ben Radatz)
BEST COMBINATION – MIXED MEDIA: ONLY A CHILD (Simone Giampaolo)
BEST ANIMATION FROM A SERIES: FALL IN LOVE – BERLIN (Cécile Rousset , Romain Blanc-Tailleur, Adrienne Nowak)
INTERNATIONAL SHORT: THE LEGEND OF LWANDA MAGERE (Kwame Nyong’o)
LAAF SPECIAL JURY AWARD: IF ANYTHING HAPPENS I LOVE YOU (Will McCormack, Michael Govier)

Full list of winners available here:
http://blog.laafest.com/2020-winners/

“Bench”

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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.