Established in 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing, International Animation Festival Hiroshima connects animation with peace and international understanding. Its identity centres on a biennial international competition of animated shorts, endorsed by ASIFA. The festival grows from the work of animators Renzo and Sayoko Kinoshita, with Sayoko serving as director from the first edition. Its wider programme includes retrospectives, student and children’s animation, Animation for Peace, an educational film market, and the free presentation spaces Nexus Point for professionals and Frame In for students.
The final edition is the 18th, dated 20–24 August 2020. Its international jury assesses the competition online because of COVID-19; public screenings, workshops and other special events are cancelled. The archive records the dissolution of the festival’s organising committee on 31 March 2021.
Awards and prizes
The 2020 regulations list the Grand Prize and Hiroshima Prize at JPY 1,000,000 each, the Debut Prize at JPY 500,000, and the Renzo Kinoshita Prize at JPY 300,000, alongside Special International Jury Prizes and Special Prizes. They also provide for an audience-voted Audience Prize of JPY 100,000 and permit additional awards from other organisations. The published results of the reduced 2020 edition list the Grand Prize, Hiroshima Prize, Debut Prize, Renzo Kinoshita Prize, Special International Jury Prizes and Special Prizes; no Audience Prize appears in those results.
Festival rules
Archival regulations for HIROSHIMA 2020: eligible works are frame-by-frame animation, including computer animation, with a running time of no more than 30 minutes and completion after 1 April 2018. Stereoscopic 3D is excluded. Entrants must secure permission for copyrighted material; films awarded at other festivals remain eligible, with previous awards declared. There is no entry fee. Each film requires a separate online form, a streaming link, one still image, a director photograph and, for films with dialogue or narration, a PDF script. Selected films require a DCP, digital file or 35 mm/16 mm print. Japanese and English are the official languages. Selection and jury decisions are final. These are historical conditions for the final edition, not an open call for submissions.
