Alois Nebel receiving the European Film Academy Animated Feature Film Award

The 25th edition of the European Film Award ceremony took place December 1, 2013 in Valetta, Malta. The European Film Academy Animated Feature Film Award went to the Czech-German-Slovak co-production title Alois Nebel (2011, by Tomáš Luňák). The film was produced by the Czech company Negativ, in co-production with the German Pallas Film, Slovak Tobogang and Czech comapies UPP, Soundsquare and the  Czech Television.

Film Alois Nebel premiered in the Out of Competition section of the 68th Venice IFF in September 2011. The authors have chosen rotoscoping in order to keep the visual style of the original comic book. Each scene of the film was shot with actors on location or in the studio and then redrawn and animated. Alois Nebel is be the first Czech film using this unique technology, which combines animation and live-action. In the following year, the film was presented at various significant festivals throught the world: Warsaw FF, BFI London, Thessaloniki IFF, Black Nights Tallinn IFF, Palm Springs IFF, Gothenburg IFF and many others. The film also received the Czech national award - Czech Lion - for the Best Sound, Best Music, Best Art Direction and Best Film Poster.

The film is based on a graphic novel trilogy: the end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel (Miroslav Krobot) works as a dis­patcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Eu­rope. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute (Karel Roden), a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey.

The award was received by director Tomáš Luňák in person.

More information at:
www.europeanfilmawards.eu
www.aloisnebel.cz

Related AIC articles:
European Film Awards Nominations

published: 03.12.2012
updated: 18.06.2013