2022 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

The film tells the story of a young boy borrowing a book from his local library and forgetting to return it, only to rediscover the book years later. The opening sequence features a young man finding a dust-covered copy of ‘The Arabian Nights’ whilst clearing out his attic, which takes him back in time to the library where he borrowed it as a child, reminding him of the kind librarian who had encouraged him to take an interest in reading. As an adult, he returns to the library where the librarian has been replaced by a young woman, who opens a locker to reveal a note left to the boy by the old man that redeems the boys shame. No dialogue is necessary in this touching animation, as it sensitively recounts the story as an allegory for borrowing something and keeping your word to return or pay it back.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

Every year, thousands of people fall into a debt spiral in the UAE due to easy credit access and lack of financial education. The fact that the population of country is largely made up of expats compounds things further since they aren’t entirely aware of the policies, and defaulting payments could lead to serious repercussions. Al Etihad Credit Bureau was established to bring transparency to the lending business, while also facilitating residents with all that they need to know to access their credit worthiness. Their recently launched app makes it ever so easy for people who would like to take a loan out for personal or business reasons. With this film, we wanted to position the Bureau as someone who only has the best interest of the residents in mind.

Tell the jury about type(s) of animation used and summarise any relevant challenges or techniques.

At face value, what appears to be a be a simple style of animation, is anything but. To make the most of a very limited budget, the animators went down the bold path of creating backgrounds in 3D and characters in 2D. This technique has rarely been tried before, ‘Klaus’ being one example that comes to mind, albeit with an entirely different budget. The characters were hand drawn, tracking the movements around them and manually creating shadows to create a 3D feel to match the backgrounds. At the end, the effort was well worth it since the film largely managed to capture the innocence of classic Disney cartoons that the audience grew up to.