On Tuesday, ASIFA-Hollywood announced the nominations for its 49th Annie Awards for animation, with Walt Disney Animation Studios is leading in the feature competition with nine nomination for “Encanto” and ten nominations for its “Raya and the Last Dragon.”
Close behind there are Sony Pictures Animation/Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines with eight apiece and Pixar’s Luca.
All four movies, along with Illumination’s Sing 2, are nominated for best animated feature, while Pompo the Cinephile, The Summit of the Gods, Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko, Flee, and Belle is nominated for a best animated independent feature.
The category for an independent animated film was added to the event in 2015. In four of the last five years, the winner of the best animated feature category went on to win the Oscar for the best-animated feature.
While Raya leads the Annies pack with ten nominations, However, it failed to earn a nomination for directing in a feature. In that combined category, ASIFA nominated the helmers of Encanto, Flee, Belle, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, and Luca. For writing, Raya and the Last Dragon, Flee, The Mitchells vs. The Machines are nominated, Flee and Luca.
Flee and Belle is the most nominated of the independent features. Flee–Jonas Poher Rasmussen wrote and directed this animated documentary, which was also selected to represent Denmark in the Academy Award’s international feature category–tells the intimate story of the life of pseudonymous subject “Amin,” who shares his escape from Afghanistan as a child refugee. Oscar-nominated writer-director Mamoru Hosoda’s Beauty and the Beast-inspired Belle follows Suzu, a shy 17-year-old from a rural village who becomes an international singing sensation when she enters a virtual world known as “U.”