British Animation Awards: Kensuke’s Kingdom wins big at BFI Southbank ceremony - full list of winners

An adaptation of a Michael Morpurgo book picked up three accolades at the British Animation Awards (BAAs) on Thursday (March 7).

The ceremony for the biennial awards was held at BFI Southbank, and saw Kensuke’s Kingdom, directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, win Best Feature, the Writers Award for Frank Cottrell-Boyce, and Best Original Music for composer Stuart Hancock.

London-based studio Lupus Films was also successful in the Best Long Form category. Its Channel 4 hand-drawn animation adapted from Judith Kerr’s picture book Mog’s Christmas, directed by Robin Shaw, shared the honours with A Bear Called Wojtek, Iain Gardner’s film about Edinburgh Zoo’s brown bear, which was adopted by Polish soldiers during World War Two.

The BAAs are in their 28th year - the last under the stewardship of director Helen Brunsdon and producer Kieran Argo, who announced that they will be handing over to new management for the 2026 edition.

By then, the industry may find itself in a whole new world and the spectre of AI hung over the ceremony. Not that this was a sombre occasion - an opening animation by Dog & Rabbit, packed with industry in-jokes, featured an inept Flang, “the superstar of ai art” (“AI art may be well coming to kill us all, but not tonight”).

The audience quickly warmed to their host, the comedian Henning Wehn, for whom it must have been one of the most enjoyable corporate gigs he has done, and not just because of the opportunity to "watch the telly".

Other winners included for The Debutante, a tale of a spirited young woman who persuades a hyena from London Zoo to take her place at a dinner dance held in her honour. Elizabeth Hobbs' animation picked up Best Short Film.

Channel 5 Milkshake!’s Odo, about a little owl with a big heart, won Best Children’s Pre-School Series and Best Design.

In two of the newer categories, the Cutting Edge award was picked up by Emma Calder for Beware of Trains, while the Wildcard category was won, appropriately, by Jon Dunleavy’s AI-baiting Two Gracious Uncles Smooched to the Beat.

Helen Brunsdon and Kieran Argo said in a statement: “As always we have been blown away by the quality of work produced by the British Animation industry over the last couple of years and would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners.”

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British Animation Awards 2024 winners

The British Animation Awards 2024 nominees and winners (in bold):

Best Feature Film

• Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
• A Cat Called Dom
• Kensuke’s Kingdom - Winner
• Puffin Rock and the New Friends
• The Amazing Maurice

Best Voice Performance

• Mog’s Christmas
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
• The Amazing Maurice - Winner

Best Long Form

• A Bear Named Wojtek - Winner
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
• Peter and the Wolf
• Mog’s Christmas - Winner

Best Short Film

• Christopher at Sea
• The Debutante - Winner
• All Gucci My Broski

Best Children’s Series

• The Sound Collector: Harp Strings
• The Rubbish World of Dave Spud: Moonbreaker - Winner
• Lloyd of the Flies
• Tweedy and Fluff

Best Animation in a Commercial

• Blown Away for Admiral
• The Great British Bake Off Official Trailer for Channel 4 - Winner
• The Lords of Water for The Lords of Water

Best Music Video

• Carry You (Ruelle)
• Tell Me Where to Go (JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown)
• Late Nights (DeathbyRomy/Adult Swim - Winner

Best Children’s Pre-School

• Hey Duggee
• The Adventures of Paddington
• The Very Small Creatures
• Odo - Winner

Best International Animated Series

• Captain Fall
• Milo
• The Tiny Chef Show - Winner
• Supa Team 4

Best Factual Award

• Jeremy, My Father
• Something More
• Another Presence - Winner
• A Taste for Music

Wildcard

• The Beatles Vs The Stones
• Two Gracious Uncles Smooched to the Beat - Winner
• Hairy Houdini

Best Undergraduate Film

• The Moonseeker
• hyposoMIAOW
• Cortex - Winner

Best Postgraduate Film

• Death of the Gods
• Spring Roll Dream
• The Wolf of Custer - Winner
• Crab Day

Social Good Award

• Alzheimer’s Research UK - Change the Ending - Winner
• Ask Me How I Am
• Inner Polar Bear

Best Original Music

• Stuart Hancock for Kensuke’s Kingdom - Winner
• Beth Porter and Ben Please for Tweedy & Fluff
• David Arnold for Mog’s Christmas

Writer’s Award

• Andrew Barnett Jones and Ciaran Murtagh for Lloyd of the Flies: Gummy Goes Off
• Frank Cottrell-Boyce for Kensuke’s Kingdom - Winner
• Edward Foster for The Rubbish World of Dave Spud: Olden Days
• Hamish Steele for Dead End: Paranormal Park: 210 The Watcher’s Test

Best Design

• Ms Marvel
• Odo - Winner
• Puffin Rock and the New Friends

Best Use of Sound

• Kensuke’s Kingdom
• The Smeds and the Smoos - Winner
• The Sound Collector: Harp Strings

Cutting Edge Award

• Beware of Trains - Winner
• Silly Duck
• Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway
• The Line Experiments

Lamb Award

• Beatriz Diosdado Masa
• Aiesha Penwarden
• Malachi James - Winner

Children’s Choice Award

• Dead End: Paranormal Park - Winner
• Supertato
• The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe: The Prince and the Valiant Quest
• Lego City: No Limits (episode 6)

Audience Award

• Shackle - Winner