Women In Animation has just announced the recipients of the WIA Diversity Award, presented alongside the Spark Computer Graphics Society (Spark CG). This year’s recipients are:

Producer Chris Nee, Epic Games, and Seyed Mohsen Pourmohseni Shakib’s film, entitled: It’s a Gray, Gray World.

Jena Olson (Head of Operations at WIA) is presenting the awards via a taped presentation that will be available online from the first day of the 2022 SPARK ANIMATION. The full event will run in-person out of Vancouver, Canada, and will also be live-streamed from October 27th – October 30th.

The WIA Diversity Awards were created to recognize and celebrate projects and people that have made a substantial impact in broadening the diversity of voices in the animation industry- whether it be through their own creativity, by fostering the creativity of others, or by driving diversity initiatives that enrich our industry and communities.

Marge Dean, President of WIA stated that “for the last six years, the WIA Diversity Awards have shined a spotlight on those individuals and organizations putting in the work to make the animation and VFX industries a more diverse and equitable place for all people to prosper and create. They are cultivating a culture where rich storytelling can thrive.”

Chris Nee has had an illustrious career working alongside some of the most influential and educational studios in the field of animation, including Sesame Street, Disney Junior and Nickelodeon. Throughout that course of time, Nee’s commitment to inclusion and genuine representation in the genre of animation has never waned.Nee stated “As we get older our priorities change, and nothing could make me prouder at this point in my career than to be recognized for working to bring new voices, diverse voices, to the table. A huge thank you to WIA and the Spark Animation Festival for the huge honor.”

Epic Games is world-famous for their skills within the gaming and VFX industries. They not only lead one of the largest games — Fortnite — with over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections, but the company actively strives toward making technology accessible to as many creatives as possible. Through their flagship programs — The Unreal Educator Accelerator: Arts, Media, and Entertainment Workforce Training Initiative and the MegaGrants Program — Epic Games has taken out some of the barriers facing many marginalized aspiring creatives.

Born in Rasht, Iran, Seyed Mohsen Pourmohseni Shakib started his career as an artist at the age of 17 when he became a member of the Iranian Young Cinema Society. As a filmmaker, he has uplifted the voices of marginalized people through his work. In his latest film, It’s a Gray, Gray World, Seyed presents a monochrome gray world where a cautious young man’s colorful identity is accidentally revealed to the public by a playful child. The frightened gray community calls upon the police to arrest the young man, and while he does indeed escape, he eventually returns to fight for his freedom.

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Lauren Ashton

Lauren Ashton is a Los Angeles-based writer. She has also taught stop-motion animation and film history since 2020, and holds a BFA in Acting from The California Institute of the Arts. Lauren has previously worked with Walt Disney Imagineering, and since graduating from CalArts, she has worked at Spellbound Inc. (a YouTube Production Company), Gnomon School of Animation, and written plays and sketch comedy for various theaters.

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