AFI Fest Winners List Includes ‘Wolfwalkers’, ’76 Days’

AFI Fest on Friday announced the winners of its jury and audience awards, with marquee honors going to Secret of Kells duo Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s animated Wolfwalkers, which won the audience award for narrative feature, and 76 Days, the documentary about the first days of the COVID-19 virus in China, taking the doc audience award honor.

Wolfwalkers follows Robyn, who befriends wild girl Mebh while exploring the magical forest outside an Irish town’s walls and undergoes a transformation. For 76 Days, directors Wu Hao and Chen Weixi filmed inside Wuhan’s hospitals as the city of 11 million go on lockdown in on January 23, 2020.

Johnson Cheng’s Lonely Blue Night won the short film audience award.

The mostly virtual festival, which ran October 15-22, featured 125 titles and more than 120 filmmakers participating in panel discussions. The annual fest opened with the Rachel Brosnahan-starring 1970s crime drama I’m Your Woman from director Julia Hart and wrapped with the Errol Morris documentary My Psychedelic Love Story, both world premieres.

As per tradition, the fest’s Grand Jury ward winners for Live Action and Animated Short will be eligible for the Oscar race. This year, the winners are Tiger and Ox (animated) and Pillars (live action).

Here’s the full winners list:

Here’s the full list of winners:

Audience Awards

Narrative Feature
WOLFWALKERS (DIR Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)

Documentary Feature
76 DAYS (DIR Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous)

Short Film
LONELY BLUE NIGHT (DIR Johnson Cheng)

Grand Jury Prizes

Animation Short
TIGER AND OX (호랑이와 소) (DIR Seunghee Kim)

Live Action Short
PILLARS (DIR Haley Elizabeth Anderson)

Special Mentions

BLACK GOAT (DIR Yi Tang)

MAALBEEK (DIR Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis)

UMBILICAL (DIR Danski Tang)

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