Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms), Jean-Gabriel Périot
Presented in 2006 and 2007 'for single-screen, innovative work that experiments with form, technique and content', selected from films submitted to Encounters Festival.
Films
2007 winner
The award was presented at Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol on 24 November to Jean-Gabriel Périot for his film Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms).
Jury
George Clark, Artists’ Moving Image Officer, Independent Cinema Office
Jacqui Davies, Co-Director, Animate Projects
Shreela Ghosh, Deputy Director, inIVA
Ian White, Adjunct Film Curator, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Louise Wilson, Artist
Jacqui Davies, Co-Director of Animate Projects, summed up the jury's feelings: 'The shortlisted films are diverse in their origins and reflect the wide range of practices which appealed to different jurors. However, the decision about the winning film was unanimous. Jean-Gabriel Périot’s Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms) is an extraordinary film, using archive photographs to piece together the devastating history and changing political and physical landscape of Hiroshima from 1914 to 2006'.
Animate Award shortlist
Suprematist Kapital (Yin-Ju Chen & James T Hong, USA, 2005, 5'00")
Ozymandias (Dave Griffiths, UK, 2006, 3'20")
Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms) (Jean-Gabriel Périot, France, 2007, 10'00")
Lumpy Diversity (Anna Hallin, Iceland, 2007, 6'54")
Le Grand Content (Clemens Kogler & Karo Szmit, Austria, 2007, 4'00")
The Way We Live (Nikolaus Jantsch, Austria, 2006, 7'40")
Latent Sorrow (Shon Kim, USA, 2006, 3'30")
me + you - (Michael Aubtin Madadi, UK, 2007, 3'24")
Cornland (Zhou Hongxlang, China, 2007, 10'00")
Energie! (Energy!) (Thorsten Fleisch, Germany, 2007, 5'07")
Time Out review
'Périot is the most relevant short filmmaker of the new century, one who is profoundly aware of history, whether of the moving image or of the species and all it wreaks, while working absolutely inside the present moment, both conceptually and technically. His vast and precise found-image assemblies, drawn from both still and moving footage and the internet, tease out extremely empathetic parables of traumatic experience from within and in opposition to, the visual acceleration of the world. Whether tackling Hiroshima or the dark heart of old Europe, he delivers a unique take on the realities of our times in a visual language that is startlingly resonant.' Gareth Evans, Time Out London, 28 November-4 December 2007, p.93.
2006 winner
The first Animate Award was presented at Encounters last year. The winner for 2006 was Edouard Salier for his film Empire (2005).