On May 10, the 33rd Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS) closed with a total of 11 awards. Out of the 2,000 proposals received, 208 short films and 6 feature films competed before the jury, which awarded the highest recognition to Kiana Naghshineh. Her work With Tapes and Toasts in the Car won the Grand Prize for Animation of the State of Baden-Württemberg and the City of Stuttgart — €10,000 and direct Oscar nomination — in addition to the Audience Award, sponsored by SWR with an additional €6,000.
Technical Animation: From Open Source Software to Digital Composition 🎬
The winning production, a co-production between Germany and France in 2025, stands out for its use of mixed techniques. According to festival data, the short combines traditional 2D animation with digital composition layers created in Blender and After Effects. The team used a node-based pipeline to generate organic textures, while the soundtrack was integrated through procedural synchronization. Director Naghshineh stated that the work sought to explore the plasticity of movement without resorting to complex physics engines, prioritizing hand-drawing as the foundation.
The Audience Also Awarded, But There Were No Free Popcorn 🍿
ITFS attendees proved to have a good eye — or at least a good vote — by coinciding with the jury on the same winner. Naghshineh took home two awards, but did not double the money: the €6,000 audience check adds to the €10,000 jury check, a total of €16,000 which, according to the organization's calculations, barely covers the catering for an animation team for a month. Meanwhile, the daycare centers and schools that filled the children's activities left with the certainty that, at least, no one asked for their opinion on the finalist shorts.