Doha, Dec 5 (UNI) ‘Loving Vincent’, an animated film on the life of painter Vincent van Gogh, has scooped the top prizes at the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival.

The Poland-UK-Qatar co-production, directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, won the audience prize and the Best Feature film award in its category, giving the film two of the festival’s honours Monday night.

‘Loving Vincent’ had won the audience prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where the film was premiered in June this year. The animated film has handpainted scenes using 65,000 oil paintings on canvas.

‘Walls’, a short film on war and innocence by Nibu Vasudevan, an Indian immigrant from Kerala, won a Special Jury award.

At the Ajyal festival, which has a jury composed entirely of children and young adults, ‘Loving Vincent’ won the Best Feature film award in the Bader category. Another animated film, ‘The Breadwinner’, which is executive-produced by Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie, won the Best Feature film award in the Hilal category. In the Mohaq category, the Best Feature prize went to the German entry ‘At Eye Level’.

‘The Breadwinner’ tells the story of a 11-eleven year girl in Afghanistan under the Taliban taking charge of her family after her father is imprisoned.

The Bariq Award given by the youngest jury, children below eight years, was bagged by the Swiss animated short film ‘The Little Bird and the Caterpillar’, about an unlikely friendship.

The awards were presented at a closing ceremony held at the Katara Cultural Village, the venue of the Ajyal festival, one of the biggest film festivals in the world for the young people. The closing ceremony was followed by the screening of ‘Loving Vincent’.

In the three main categories, the short film prizes went to ‘Sing’, ‘Mare Nostrum’ and ‘All of Us’. The Hungarian film, ‘Sing’, had won the Oscar for the Best Short Film this year.

The awards for the Made in Qatar catgory were won by ‘Smicha’ and ‘Treasures of the Past’.

There were more than 100 films from 43 countries at the festival this year, including 12 features films. The festival this year had over 400 jury members, deciding the main prizes in three age groups from eight to 21. There was also a young jury of children below eight years, presenting one award.

This year’s entries varied in content from van Gogh’s life to a little girl’s struggle to become a singer, to even life in the war-torn Syria.

Presented by the Doha Film Institute, which funded Mira Nair’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, the Ajyal festival this year saw the presence of Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, at the closing ceremony.

UNI XC CJ SNU 1340