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“Iwájú,” a new animated series on Disney+, is unlike anything else on the service. And really, it’s unlike anything in the history of Disney Animation – a collaborative project between Walt Disney Animation Studios, Kugali Media and Cinesite (a long-running visual effects and animation studio headquartered in England). A truly global affair, “Iwájú” imagines a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria, where a 10-year-old finds herself embroiled in a high-stakes, technologically advanced tug-of-war.

And it all started with some good, old-fashioned trash talk.

Hamid Ibrahim, cocreator of “Iwájú” and the project’s production designer, said in 2019 that Kugali wanted to “kick Disney’s ass.” But Jennifer Lee, chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios (and director of “Frozen”), wasn’t offended — she was intrigued. In 2020, “Iwájú” was announced as the first original series from Walt Disney Animation Studios, made in collaboration with Kugali.

After the public call-out, “a very, very organic and...

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Don’t Look Up, Black-ish and Pachinko were among the winners of the 46th annual Humanitas Prizes announced Friday from a luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

The awards, honoring the craft of screenwriting, featured winners in nine juried categories spanning film and television. These included Don’t Look Up from writer Adam McKay for comedy feature film, The Starling from Matt Harris for drama feature film and Encanto from Charise Castro Smith and Jared Bush for family feature film.

On the TV side, Black-ish writer Robb Chavis prevailed for comedy teleplay, Pachinko creator Soo Hugh won for drama teleplay and Women of the Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar was tops for limited series, TV movie or special.

Larry Wilmore hosted the event, and presenters included Nkechi Okoro Carroll, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Humanitas board president Jenny Bicks. Also honored were...

Retiring ABC series “Black-ish” picked up one more honor on Friday, a Humanitas Prize for comedy teleplay, while Apple TV+’s “Pachinko” and ABC’s “Women of the Movement” also were recognized at the event.

Held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and hosted by comedian Larry Wilmore, the 46th annual Humanitas Prize event centered on awards and 10,000 cash prizes to screenwriters across ten categories. In addition, Humanitas board president Jenny Bicks presented Filmmakers for Ukraine with the Kieser Award “in recognition of their work to connect the Ukrainian film and TV community impacted by the Russo-Ukrainian War with resources, jobs, and funding to meet basic needs.”

And Jasmine Cephas Jones presented Starz with Voice for Change Award for its #TakeTheLead initiative. Starz president/CEO Jeffrey Hirsch accepted the prize on the network’s behalf. Nkechi Okoro Carroll oversaw the New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Award presentations.

Here are this...

Humanitas has revealed the nominees for this year’s Humanitas Prizes, which recognize “television and film writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced way.” The award is given out in nine categories, including comedy, drama and limited series.

This year’s nominees include “Maid,” “This Is Us,” “Queen Sugar,” “Pachinko,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Somebody Somewhere” and “Black-ish.” Winners will be announced at an in-person awards luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on September 9, 2022.

“The Humanitas Prizes were created to recognize writers whose work explores the beauty and complexity of the human experience and the 2022 nominees do just that,” said Michelle Franke, Humanitas Executive Director. “Ranging in scope, style, and perspective, these stories underscore our bonds, our history and responsibility to each other in the present as well as possibilities for the future. Especially during challenging times, writers dedicate themselves to the stories that connect and entertain us.”

Here...

After a two-year hiatus, Humanitas has revealed the nominations for its 2022 Humanitas Prizes in nine categories

Winners will receive their trophies during a September 9 in-person ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.

Launched in 1974, the Humanitas Prizes honor film and television writers whose work explores the human condition, with recipients receiving a trophy and a cash prize.

Here are the nominees for the 46th annual Humanitas Prize:

Children’s Teleplay

El Deafo: Written by Cece Bell and Will McRobb

Karma’s World: “Hair Comes Trouble” – Written by Kellie R. Griffin and Halcyon Person

Snoopy Presents: To Mom (and Dad), with Love: Written by Alex Galatis

The Babysitters Club: “Claudia and the Sad Goodbye” – Written by Sascha Rothchild

Comedy Feature Film

Don’t Look Up: Written by Adam McKay

Everything Everywhere All At Once: Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

Queen Bees: Written by Donald Martin

tick, tick…Boom!:...

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Humanitas has announced the nominees for the 46th annual Humanitas Prizes, which celebrates the craft of screenwriting. Across nine juried categories, which include both television and film, 45 writers are nominated for their work.

Among the nominees are Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson (comedy teleplay) and Academy Award-winning Coda writer-director Sian Heder (drama feature film). Adam McKay, who was nominated for an Oscar this year for Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, also received a nom for comedy feature film, along with Everything Everywhere All At Once scribes and directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

“The Humanitas Prizes were created to recognize writers whose work explores the beauty and complexity of the human experience and the 2022 nominees do just that,” said Humanitas executive director Michelle Franke in a statement. “Ranging in scope, style, and perspective, these stories underscore our bonds, our history and...

Disney Animation has unveiled a trailer for the short film Far From the Tree, which will be available for streaming on Disney+ later this week. You might've already seen this short if you went to see Encanto in the cinema, as it played in front of showings of that Disney Animation movie when it opened last month. In Far From the Tree, curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe. They will learn that while there is reason to be fearful, as danger lurks around every corner, it is still possible to live with an open heart. There's no voice cast, as this one doesn't have any voices anyway, just a couple of cute raccoons that go on an adventure around the Pacific Northwest. It's made by Natalie Nourigat, who also made Exchange Student in Disney's "Short Circuit" series. Meet the two raccoons below.

“Encanto Dazzles Both Visually & Narratively, With Vibrant Songs And Stellar Animation” – Andrea Towers, IGN

Bring Home the Magic When Encanto Arrives on Digital December 24 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD February 8. Includes All-New Animated Short, Far From The Tree, Plus Sing-Along Version With On-Screen Lyrics and Never-Before-Seen Bonus Features

Encanto marks the 60th animated feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios and will soon be available to audiences to enjoy at home. Fans can enjoy a sing-along movie version, never-before-seen bonus features and deleted scenes when Encanto arrives on all major digital platforms this holiday season on December 24 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD February 8.

Encanto will also be available on Disney+ starting December 24.

In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto,” Antonio may be shy, but his huge heart is his biggest asset—rivaled only by his newly received magical ability to communicate with animals. Directed by Byron Howard...

In most languages the word for raccoon is derived from its behaviour. In English we have, through various spellings (raugroughcum and arathkone being personal favourites) adopted it from the Powhatan. 'animal that scratches with its hands', in Latin 'before-dog washer', in French 'little wash-rat'. It's an iconic behaviour, and in this touching tale of the creature sometimes known as the trash-panda one we see a few times.

Screening with Encanto, as is now a Disney tradition, there's a good chance that Far From The Tree will be the first short film someone will see. Possibly the first film someone will see in the cinema. Which is no bad thing, because it's an absolute delight.

Natalie Nourigat writes, directs. She is on that arc for young animators, animation department work here, short there, autobiographical comic, small changes creating motion. Those motions creating emotion, and beautifully so. From the Disney logo drawn in.

The ecosystem of graphic novels is still proliferating – it might not have quite as many niches as pure-prose books do, but it’s getting there. We may see a day where any kind of book that exists in prose also exists in graphic form.

I Moved to Los Angeles to Work in Animation is a great example: I don’t think a book like this would have existed twenty years ago, and definitely not thirty. The title explains it perfectly: Natalie Nourigat [1] was a freelance artist and cartoonist in Portland (Oregon), and wanted a more stable career that used her art skills. So she researched the animation world, set her sights on a story artist job, eventually got one in LA, and created this book a few years later to describe the whole deal – job, move, career, LA, industry.

Books like that have been around in prose for a hundred...

Disney has tapped top toon talents from across the African continent for “Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire,” a Disney Plus Original anthology of animated films set to premiere on the Mouse House’s streaming platform in late 2022.

Inspired by the continent’s diverse histories and cultures, the 10-part anthology brings together a slate of rising animation talents from six African nations to produce action-packed sci-fi and fantasy stories that will present bold visions of advanced technology, aliens, spirits and monsters imagined from uniquely African perspectives.

Oscar-winning director Peter Ramsey (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”) will serve as executive producer, with Tendayi Nyeke and Anthony Silverston as supervising producers. Cape Town-based animation house Triggerfish, which received the prestigious MIFA Animation Industry Award in Annecy this year, will be the lead studio for the anthology, working in collaboration with animation studios across the continent and globally.

“We are bringing the work of a visionary...

Raccoon survival and youthful curiosity clash in Disney’s latest 2D/CG hybrid short, “Far From the Tree,” premiering Tuesday at the hybrid 2021 Annecy Animation festival, and screening theatrically in front of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s animated musical, “Encanto,” on November 24. But, for director Natalie Nourigat (the Short Circuit “Exchange Student” on Disney+), her short obviously went much deeper than celebrating childhood memories growing up in Oregon, and family visits to the cold and misty Canon Beach.

In “Far From the Tree,” curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon, whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe from roaming coyotes on their idyllic beach in the Pacific Northwest. “I needed a conflict, the realization that you’re being an over-protective parent,” said Nourigat. “Where’s that line between I need to keep you safe and prepare you for what’s out there and letting you enjoy being a kid...

Variety‘s fifth annual 10 Animators to Watch celebrated what’s new, what’s different and what’s to come in animation.

Variety and Nickelodeon partnered for the event, held at NeueHouse in Hollywood on Tuesday night and hosted by Variety’s executive vice president of content Steve Gaydos. The 10 Animators to Watch — Henry Bonsy, Jérémy Clapin, Trevor Dalmer, Emily Limyun Dean, Valerie Lapointe, Natalie Nourigat, Keely Propp, Miguel Puga, Troy Quane, Malenga Mulendema — took the stage in honor of their auspicious careers in animation. Kristine Belson, president of Sony Pictures Animation, received the honor for Creative Impact in Animation.

“[Animation] is no longer a medium or genre for just kids. It’s a medium — and some of us think it’s the best medium — of storytelling for all audiences to enjoy,” Belson told the crowd upon accepting the honor.

Belson recalled the process of overhauling Sony Pictures Animation during her four...

Annecy, France — Disney Animation Studios, a long-time friend and collaborator of the Annecy Intl. Animation Festival, returned to the French town on Friday with three new shorts from its experimental animated shorts program Short Circuit, destined for Disney Plus, before providing an inside look at upcoming “Frozen 2.”

Held at Annecy’s lakeside Bonlieu Theater, “Frozen 2” head of animation Becky Bresee and head of effects animation Marlon West shared behind the scenes details for the making of Disney’s most anticipated sequel in years, telling stories, showing photos and screening two scenes, never-before-seen outside of Disney’s Burbank studios.

Before the first clip, Bresee and West explained that the film kicks off, as did the first, when Elsa and Anna are still young girls. Their father regales the girls with a lavish bedtime story from his youth, when the young prince himself visited an enchanted elemental forest, before something went horribly...

Women in Animation, Les Femmes s’Animent announce June 10 date, programme line-up.

Celebrated academic and inclusion expert Stacy Smith and French actor and women’s activist Julie Gayet will be among the speakers at the Women in Animation World Summit in Annecy, France, on June 10.

Organised by Women in Animation (Wia) and Les Femmes s’Animent (Lfa), the third summit takes place in conjunction with the Annecy International Animation Festival and Mifa 2019 and has chosen the notion of belonging as this year’s theme.

The Walt Disney Studios vice-president of multicultural audience engagement and Wia secretary Julie Ann Crommett will kick off the day-long,...

Disney returns to the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 14th with three new shorts as part of Short Circuit, the studio’s experimental program launched in 2016 with “Cycles,” the Vr short directed by lighting artist Jeff Gipson.

The premiering shorts consist of “Just a Thought,” directed by Brian Menz; “Exchange Student,” directed by Natalie Nourigat (story artist on “Ralph Breaks the Internet”); and “Jing Hua” (“Flower in the “Mirror”), directed by Jerry Huynh. All three contain unique visual styles. Menz uses a Sunday comics look for “Just a Thought,” inspired by his awkward pre-teen memories; Nourigat utilizes a watercolor look for “Exchange Student”; and Huynh lends a gorgeous Chinese brushstroke technique to “Jing Hua.”

Short Circuit encourages everyone at Disney to pitch and offers an open environment for taking risks. The program began with the Cr short, “Cycles,” directed by Jeff Gipson and now all of these roughly...