The Encounters Short Film Festival tonight announced the winners of its 13th annual international competition to find the best new animated and live action films of under 30 minutes length.

At a gala ceremony, held at Watershed, Bristol, UK, the festival’s 10 principal prizes went to the following entries:

ANIMATE ARTIST AWARD: "NIJUMAN NO BEREI" (200,000 PHANTOMS)
Directed by: Jean-Gabriel Periot, (France, 10 mins)

French video artist Jean-Gabriel Periot received the £2,000 Animate cash prize for the best single-screen, innovative work, experimenting with form, technique and
content, for "Nijuman No Borei" (200,000 Phantoms) which uses intricate montages and overlays of stills imagery to reveal the changes experienced by Hiroshima from 1914 to 2006.

BBC THREE NEW FILMMAKERS AWARD: "BIGBOY-74"
Directed by: Thomas Marshall (UK, 10 mins)

Thomas Marshall won £5,000 and a prime-time slot on BBC3 for his comedy short, BIGBOY-74 about a suicidal guy named Henry and his crash course in ‘dogging’.
Thomas’s film and the other nine finalists future also win a BBC Online showcase.

BEST OF BRITISH AWARD: "SOFT"
Directed by: Simon Ellis (UK, 14 mins)

Nottingham-based film-maker Simon Ellis added yet another award to his fast- growing collection by winning the festival’s £1,000 prize for the best UK entry with
‘SOFT’, his 16th short, in which a father re-discovers his fear of confrontation at the worst possible moment. Simon’s win at Encounters comes just as he is about to
start work on his first full-length feature: "DOGGING: A LOVE STORY."

CARTOON D’OR NOMINATION: "PUSHKIN"
Directed by: Trevor Hardy (UK, 5 mins)

Bristol-trained stop-frame animator Trevor Hardy, who now lives in West Sussex, earned the honour of representing Britain in the prestigious Cartoon d’Or
competition with PUSHKIN, about a missing cat and a worried owner.

COSGROVE HALL FILMS CHILDREN’S JURY AWARD: "A GENTLEMAN’S DUEL"
Directed by: Francisco Ruiz & Sean McNally (USA, 7 mins 45 secs)

Comic book artist Ruiz and his Blur Studios colleague, character animator McNally won over the Encounters festival’s specially convened jury of 12-18-years-old
cinephiles with their finely designed story about an elegant tea party being upturned when two aristocrats find they are rivals in love.

DEPICT! AWARD: "OPERATOR"
Directed by Matthew Walker (UK, 90 secs)

Bristol-based writer, director and animator Matthew Walker wins the £2,000 first prize in the latest Depict! challenge to find the best 90 seconds micro-film with his animation OPERATOR which begins with a man calling telephone enquiries to ask: “Do you have a number for God?”

INTERNATIONAL JURY AWARD: "LAMPA CU CACIULA" (THE TUBE WITH A HAT)
Directed by: Radu Jude (Romania, 23 mins)

Romania’s growing reputation as a centre of fresh film talent is confirmed with the jury’s decision to give 2007’s £3,000 ‘best in festival award to Radu Jude’s film about the seven-year-old boy who wakes up early in a remote village and decides it is time for he and his father to take their tv set to the city to be mended.

BEST INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER IN ANIMATION AWARD: "THE ITCH"
Directed by Joel Green (UK, 1 min 42 seconds)

Young British animator, Joel Green, from the National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth, wins £2,500 and the title of best animation newcomer
against opposition from Australasia, Asia, Europe, and North America with THE ITCH, about a man being trailed by an unwelcome companion he can’t shake off.

ITV WEST AWARD: "YOUNG OFFENDER"
Directed by: Isabel Anderton (UK, 11 mins)

Isabel Anderton, Bristol, becomes the only woman to win an Encounters 2007 prize with her short about a young white inmate who becomes increasingly disturbed as he serves out his time in a multi-racial institution for young offenders. She receives £1,000 as the maker of the best entry this year to be made in the South West.

NAHEMI / KODAK PRIZE FOR CREATIVE FILMMAKING
& KODAK / NAHEMI CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD: "ISABELLA"
Directed by: Geoffrey Taylor (UK, 11mins 26 secs)

The same film wins both of this year's prizes from the National Association for Higher Education and the Moving Image (NAHEMI) for the best film by a student at a film school in the UK or Ireland: ISABELLA, by University of the West of England graduate (and regular Encounters volunteer), Geoffrey Taylor, on a budget of £900.

AUDIENCE AWARDS

The Encounters 2007 ceremony also included the presentation of three further awards – each chosen by festival and/or online audiences. Here, the winners were:

DepicT! Audience Award: "THE PICNIC,"
by Bristol-born, University of the West of England graduate David Gilbert. David Gilbert receives a bundle of benefits from Shooting People, the online news service and resource bank for film-makers.

South West Screen Audience Award: "A SHORT COLLECTION OF HILARY FLAMINGO’S DREAM VOCATIONS" by Harriet Fleuriot, a graduate from The Arts Institute, Bournemouth, now based in Bristol. She receives a cash prize of £1,000 from and mentoring by an industry professional.

UK Film Council Audience Award: "LES COUILLUS" (Home Team) by French film-maker Mirabelle Kirkland, who receives £500 after her entry, about a bunch of guys
attending a seminar on resolving domestic strife, was voted the favourite of festival delegates.