Animayo celebrates the Oscar victory of the short film 'In the Shadow of the Cypress'

'In the Shadow of the Cypress', which entered the Oscar Race by winning the Grand Jury Prize Anime 2024, has closed a successful career with the 2025 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, an event attended by its two Iranian directors, Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, and Damián Perea, producer and director of the Canary Islands festival.

In the Shadow of the Cypress obtained a direct pass to the preselection for the 2025 Oscar Awards given the condition of Anime as the only Spanish animation festival declared “Qualifying Festival” by the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The award fills Animayo with “joy and pride,” who has already taken other short films to the American event: Our Uniform, Gran Premio Animayo 2023, was also nominated for Best Animated Short 2024 and, previously, Late Afternoon, Grand Prix Animayo 2017, suffered the same fate at the 2018 Oscars.

The news broke in the early morning of Monday March 3, a moment in which more than twenty million viewers in the world watched live the emotional embrace of Damian Perea to the Iranian directors who had arrived in extremis Dolby Theatre. So much so, that in his representation and given the promotion of Animayo to its winner carried out during its 2024 World Tour, Damián Perea made the red carpet prior to the gala from where he attended to the numerous international media gathered there. Perea, director and producer of Animayo, has expressed his “most sincere congratulations to our incredible programming team, whose vision brought this gem to our festival, and to the jury, who saw his greatness from the beginning. “It is an honor to be part of this journey and support the animation that moves and inspires the world.”

In the Shadow of the Cypress, a 2D animated short film, with a duration of 19:33 minutes, addresses with great sensitivity the consequences of post-traumatic stress and the complex family relationships marked by the psychological effects of war. This piece, notable for its scenography, its use of light, a deep script and a moving narrative, unanimously won the Award for Best 2D Animation, in addition to the Grand Prize of the Animayo 2024 International Jury, chaired by the acclaimed animation director John Musker.

Animayo will celebrate its 20th anniversary of the May 7 to 10. The Gran Canaria event team is already concluding the viewing of the more than 2,000 productions of 2D animation, 3D animation, visual effects, experimental cinema, animated advertising, video clips, video game cinematics and virtual reality, coming from more than 80 countries that come to this festival every year.

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