The Executive Committee of the Tokyo Anime Award Festival (TAAF) announced that five animated works have been nominated in the feature film category of the Competition Program.

They are: "Ernest & Celestine" by Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar and Stephane Aubier; "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" by Michel Gondry; "Cheatin'" by Bill Plympton; "The Congress" by Ari Folman; and "Minuscule: La Vallee des Fourmis Perdues" by Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo.

Nominees for the short film category will be announced later.

The TAAF, which promotes animation culture at home and abroad, will be held March 20-23 at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi. The complex, in the Nihonbashi district of the capital's Chuo Ward, will open on March 20.

The predecessor to the TAFF, the Tokyo Anime Award (TAA), had been held as part of the Tokyo International Anime Fair since 2002. But the anime fair will merge with the Anime Contents Expo (ACE) to offer AnimeJapan from this spring.

Of the directors of "Ernest & Celestine," Patar and Aubier previously directed "A Town Called Panic," a puppetoon series also popular in Japan. "Ernest & Celestine" was in the running for best anime feature film award at the recent 86th Academy Awards.

"Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" is Gondry's first anime feature film. He has directed music videos for Icelandic singer-songwriter Bjork.

"Cheatin'" director Plympton's short film "Guard Dog" was nominated at the 77th Academy Awards in the best animated short category.

"The Congress" director Folman's animated documentary film, "Waltz with Bashir," was nominated for best foreign language film at the 81st Academy Awards, which went to Yojiro Takita's "Departures.

" "Minuscule" is a feature film adaptation of a French animated short series, which was also aired by Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK). One of the directors, Giraud is known as the daughter of Moebius. He was a legendary comic artist in "bande dessinee," highly artistic Franco-Belgian comics.

The TAAF will also hand out the Anime of the Year award for a title selected from animated works commercially released in the past year, as well as the Achievement Award to honor those who contributed significantly to the development of animation industry and culture.

Visit the TAAF's official website at (http://animefestival.jp/en/).

Source: animeanime