Torill Kove receives the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Canadian Film Prize for her new Mikrofilm/NFB short, Maybe Elephants. Distinguished NFB animator Torill Kove honoured at Vancouver’s SPARK ANIMATION

Oscar-winning animator Torill Kove was honoured in Vancouver by SPARK ANIMATION, Western Canada’s largest celebration of animation, presented by the Spark Computer Graphics Society.

Torill Kove received the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field of animation, as well as this year’s Canadian Film Prize for her new short film, Maybe Elephants, co-produced by Mikrofilm and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

This new honour for Maybe Elephants brings the total to four awards and mentions to date, including the Short Film – Audience Prize at South Korea’s Bucheon International Animation Festival and Best Nordic-Baltic Animated Youth Film at Norway’s Fredrikstad Animation Festival.

“I’m honoured and deeply touched to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Spark Animation festival. This is an occasion for me to reflect on how fortunate I’ve been to have a career as an animation director with the National Film Board of Canada and the Norwegian animation studio Mikrofilm. I owe these two animation studios and everybody who has collaborated with me on my films a great debt of gratitude. I interpret this award both as an acknowledgement of my work so far and as encouragement to keep making more films.”  – Torill Kove

It’s also the fourth collaboration of the NFB and Norway’s Mikrofilm with the Montreal-based animator—a stellar run of animation excellence over two decades, encompassing three Academy Award-nominated shorts, including her 2007 Oscar winner, The Danish Poet.

Maybe Elephants continues its festival tour this month at the London International Animation Festival, taking place online and in cinemas from November 22 to December 1. The film has been selected by more than 20 festivals so far, including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, LA’s Animation Is Film and AFI FEST, and the Toronto International Film Festival and Ottawa International Animation Festival.

More about the film

Maybe Elephants by Torill Kove (Mikrofilm/NFB, 16 min 43 s)
Producers: Lise Fearnley (Mikrofilm), Maral Mohammadian (NFB), Tonje Skar Reiersen (Mikrofilm)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/maybe-elephants

• In the ’70s, three rebellious teenage daughters, a restless mother, a father struggling with potatoes, and maybe some elephants, find themselves in bustling Nairobi—and the family will never be the same.
• A playful and loving autobiographical homage to family, adolescence and the therapeutic power of memories, however unreliable, Kove’s new film reunites the cast of her most recent Oscar nominee, Me and My Moulton.
• Narrated by Torill Kove, the film wraps rich nostalgia around memories of eventful family trips, timeless teen antics and those inevitable moments of adolescent epiphany—bursting with wit, a joyful colour palette and an energetic soundscape.
• Maybe Elephants was made with the collaboration of several Kenyan Canadians who played the roles of Kenyan characters and with whom Kove consulted on Swahili language and Kenyan culture.
• Torill Kove is a Norwegian-born filmmaker and animator living in Canada. Three of her films (including My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts and Me and My Moulton) have been nominated for Academy Awards, with The Danish Poet, narrated by Liv Ullmann, winning the coveted golden statue in 2007. Kove’s films are known for her expressive designs and playful and poignant autobiographical themes.

Version française ici | French version here.

About the NFB

Founded in 1939, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a one-of-a-kind producer, co-producer and distributor of distinctive, engaging, relevant and innovative documentary and animated films. As a talent incubator, it is one of the world’s leading creative centres. The NFB has enabled Canadians to tell and hear each other’s stories for over eight decades, and its films are a reliable and accessible educational resource. The NFB is also recognized around the world for its expertise in preservation and conservation, and for its rich and vibrant collection of works, which form a pillar of Canada’s cultural heritage. To date, the NFB has produced more than 14,000 works, 6,500 of which can be streamed free of charge at nfb.ca. The NFB and its productions and co-productions have earned over 7,000 awards, including 11 Oscars and an Honorary Academy Award for overall excellence in cinema.