Five Oscar Contenders for Best Animated Short

The panel is moderated by Dan Sarto, editor-in-chief of Animation World Network, and features:

• Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy – “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”
• Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby – “The Flying Sailor”
• João Gonzalez – “Ice Merchants”
• Sara Gunnarsdóttir – “My Year of Dicks”
• Lachlan Pendragon – “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented its first Oscar for an animated short film to Walt Disney for the Silly Symphonies cartoon “Flowers and Tree,” at the 5th Academy Awards ceremony in 1932. The category at the time was known as ‘Short Subjects, Cartoons.’ Disney triumphed every year through the rest of that decade, before Fred Quimby joined the ranks of winners in 1940 with MGM’s “The Milky Way.” Recent winners include “Hair Love,” “If Anything Happens I Love You,” and “The Windshield Wiper.”

An international community of over 10,000 artists, filmmakers and executives, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in 1927, with Douglas Fairbanks as its first president. The 95th Academy Awards is scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood.

Biographies

Peter Baynton studied character animation at Central St Martin’s, London. “Over the Hill,” his first
film after graduating, won The McLaren Award for Best British Animation, and he was selected by Screen International as a UK Star of Tomorrow. After years of making shorts and commercials, in 2015 he followed his heart to pursue longer form animation, working on films including “Paddington 2” and “The Tiger Who Came to Tea.”

Charlie Mackesy began his career as a cartoonist for The Spectator, before becoming a book illustrator for Oxford University Press. His internationally bestselling book “The Boy, the Mole, the
Fox and the Horse” was published in 2019 and has since been translated into over 40 different languages and dialects. Charlie's paintings have been exhibited widely and his bronzes can be found in public spaces in London.

Amanda Forbis joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1990 as animation director on the educational film “The Reluctant Deckhand.” Wendy Tilby’s first film, the Oscar-nominated “Strings” (1991), won many international awards. Forbis and Tilby teamed up to co-direct “When the Day Breaks” (1999) and “Wild Life” (2011), both of which were nominated for an Academy Award.

João Gonzalez is a film director, animator, illustrator and a musician, who trained at Escola Superior de Media Artes e Design in Portugal, and at London’s Royal College Art. His films “Nestor” and “The Voyager” won multiple awards. In 2022, his film “Ice Merchants” won the Cannes Jury Prize for Best Short Film in competition at the Critics Week, a first for a Portuguese filmmaker. Gonzalez composes the score for all his films, occasionally performing the music live.

Sara Gunnarsdóttir received her BFA from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, while also part of the electro punk band Donna Mess. She has created animation, music videos and artwork for film and television, including Marielle Heller’s debut feature “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” and HBO’s Emmy-nominated “The Case Against Adnan Sayed.”

Lachlan Pendragon is a writer, director, animator from Brisbane, Australia. He is a Student Academy Award-winner for his stop motion animated short film, "An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It". Lachlan created the short through a Doctor of Visual Arts program at Griffith Film School in Brisbane.