Nom Nom Noms

The Oscar and BAFTA nominations for 2015 have now both been announced, which I've taken as a cue for a bit of reflection on some films of note.
Leading the charge are Dice and Robert of Tonko House, whose film The Dam Keeper is an astounding concept-art-come-to-life piece of work. If asked to put together a 'Top 10' list of the best films of the past year it'd easily be amongst them. Proof of which is viewable at Revue 24 Images, for which I (along with numerous other more accomplished critics and curators) was asked to put together a 'Top 10' list of the best films of the past year. See, I zigged when you thought I was gonna...well, zig probably.
If your clicking finger is broken then the other films I picked are:

Coda (Dir. Alan Holly)

The Missing Scarf (Dir. Eoin Duffy)

Poils (Dir. Delphine Hermans)

Lost Property (Dir. Åsa Lucander)

Timber (Dir. Nils Hedinger)

La Petite Casserole d'Anatole (Dir. Éric Montchaud)

Duet (Dir. Glen Keane)

The Planets (Dir. Andy Martin)

Wackatdoo (Dir. Benjamin Arcand)

The lists were compiled by Marco de Blois who, amongst other laudable animation-related activities, is the main programmer for Quebec's Sommets du Cinéma d’Animation. As this Cartoon Brew article makes clear, one thing I can't be accused of is going with the crowd. That being said, many of the other critics' favourites would easily make my top 20 (also some folks cheated a bit and picked films from the year before, but what am I, the list police?). In fact, for the sake of why-the-hell-not, here's my next ten favourites of last year:

Submarine Sandwich (Dir. PES - this one would've made the original list but was released just after)
Monkey Love Experiments (Dir. Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson)

Symphony No. 42, Réka Bucsi
Pilots on the Way Home (Dir. Priit Pärn, Olga Pärn)

Phantom Limb (Dir. Alex Grigg)

Me and My Moulton (Dir. Torill Kove)

Things Don't Fit (Dir. Tim Divall)
Montenegro (Dir. Luiz Stockler)

The Weatherman and The Shadowboxer (Dir. Randall Okita)

365 (Dir. Brothers McLeod)

Give those all some investigation, my lovelies. Anyway, our first Lightbox of 2015 is on the making of The Dam Keeper. Seriously, if you haven't come across this film yet at all, treat yourself to a peek here:

You can also hear more from Rob and Dice in episode 25 of the Skwigly Podcast.
Also in the running are Daisy Jacobs, Joris Oprins, Disney with Feast and, happily, Torill Kove of the NFB, who I interviewed during the production of the film.
Aside from the comparatively indie Song of the Sea, the feature film noms were all fairly predictable. Though I'm not so up-in-arms about The Lego Movie being ignored I would've loved to see Bill Plympton's Cheatin' and Signe Baumane's Rocks In My Pockets in with a shot. Que cera cera. Fortunately this arrived today so I can start my weekend off right:

Going back to the shorts, Alan Holly's Coda really stood out to me last year and I urge everyone to keep their eyes open for it:

That this film and Glen Keane's Duet (admittedly more successful as an interactive experience) didn't make the nominations is a massive shame - I've yet to see Plympton's Footprints but I'm sure I'd feel similarly - massive kudos to them at any rate for getting shortlisted.
Also worth mentioning that amongst the BAFTA noms was Will and Ainslie's Monkey Love Experiments, which has already won itself a Scottish BAFTA but one more wouldn't hurt.

Fantastic stuff from those two, though this one will probably remain my favourite for a good long while: