By Kevin Kriedemann
Published February 20, 2017
A film about a stick man’s adventures has won four awards.
Made in Cape Town by Triggerfish Animation Studios in collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, STICK MAN has just won four awards at the Kidscreen Awards, making it the most awarded animation on the night.
STICK MAN beat SHAUN THE SHEEP: THE FARMER’S LLAMAS and BRUNO & BOOTS: GO JUMP IN THE POOL to win Best One-Off, Special or TV Movie for children. The 26-minute film also took home Best Direction for Jeroen Jaspaert and South African co-director Daniel Snaddon; Best Music; and Best Design.
STICK MAN has now won 11 international awards on three continents so far, including the Crystal for a TV Production at the world’s leading animation festival, Annecy, in Belgium.
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Animated in Cape Town, STICK MAN is the adventures of “Stick Man [who] lives in the family tree with Stick Lady Love and their stick children three” till he is taken further and further away from home on an epic adventure across the seasons. He runs from a playful dog, gets thrown in a river, escapes from a swan’s nest, and even ends up on top of a fire, as he tries to get back to his family in time for Christmas.
Martin Freeman (THE HOBBIT) voices Stick Man, with Hugh Bonneville (DOWNTON ABBEY) as Santa and Jennifer Saunders (ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS) as the narrator.
STICK MAN, which premiered on BBC One at Christmas 2015, is currently streaming on Showmax.
Triggerfish’s second BBC One Christmas collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, Roald Dahl’s REVOLTING RHYMES, shall have its African premiere on March 2, 2017 at the Artscape in Cape Town in collaboration with Cape Town International Animation Festival and Design Indaba, less than a week after its international festival premiere as the opening night film at New York International Children’s Film Festival. It will also screen on March 4, 2017 at the Labia as part of the Cape Town International Animation Festival.
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Coinciding with the one hundredth anniversary of Dahl’s birth, REVOLTING RHYMES combines the classic fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella, serving them with a mischievous twist. The two short films are directed by Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer, both former Annecy winners and Oscar nominees. Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper called REVOLTING RHYMES “the best thing I watched all Christmas,” while The Guardian hailed it as “a treat.”
Triggerfish, whose animated feature KHUMBA, the tale of half a zebra with a whole lot of adventure, won the Best Film award at Lola Kenya Screen in Kenya in 2013, is currently working on a third BBC One Christmas collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, THE HIGHWAY RAT, another Donaldson/Scheffler adaptation.
