Short film “Head Over Heels” has won the Cartoon d’or award at the Cartoon Forum in the southern French city of Toulouse.

A graduate film by British director Timothy Reckart, it tells the story of a husband and wife separated by gravity and who live upside down from each other.

A poignant and moving film, “Head Over Heels” has already collected more than 30 awards at festivals around the world.

The film’s producer is Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly:

“The original idea came from the Rembrandt “The Philosopher in Meditation”, that painting with the upside down, right way round world. And so we kind of wanted to apply that concept to a marriage and see what happens when you separate a couple, and we developed the story around that,” she said.

Among the other nominees for the Cartoon d’Or at the Cartoon Forum – a European co-production event for animated TV series – was Franco-Belgian production Betty’s Blues. It is the story of a young guitarist who tries his luck in an old blues dive in Louisiana.

Euronews asked Belgian director Rémi Vandenitte why he chose to mix stop motion and 2D computer techniques.

“Because they don’t tell the same story,” he said. “Two D is more allegorical, whereas stop motion brings the story closer to the public, it’s more tangible – you’ve got to chose the technique that best tells the story.”

“Ecart de conduite”, another French production, is also a graduate film by Spanish director Rocio Alvarez. It tells the story of Chloe, who is taking her driving test for the ninth time. Alvarez, who lives and works in Brussels, says she based it on her own life:

“Why not take advantage of your own experience to tell a story which speaks to everyone, because everybody, sooner or later, has to take their drivers’ license – so I decided to make a comedy about this, a comedy which is funny right until the end,” she told euronews.

“Kali the Little Vampire” was conceived and created entirely on a tablet computer using digital engraving techniques. It is Portuguese director Regina Pessoa’s third short film and concludes a trilogy on childhood, for which she has won numerous awards.

“My mother was schizophrenic, she was different,” she told euronews.

“For most of my life, I was perceived as someone who was different, the daughter of someone who was considered to be different. I made this movie to make peace with my childhood. (…) I wanted the character in this film to accept who he is – he can’t be like everyone else.”

And finally, back to stop-motion animation with French production “Lettres de Femmes” by Augusto Zanovello. Set during the First World War, it tells the story of a nurse who patches up the faces of wounded soldiers with love letters. The tender missives have the power to heal the cuts on the torn-up paper soldiers’ bodies.

The Cartoon d’Or award is a pan-European award for Best Animated Short Film and comes with a 10.000 euro prize.

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