… my brother Wolfram!
On Nov 3rd, the Hamburg Animation Award took place. Amond the 60 submissions and 10 nominations was the work “Bo” by my brother Wolfram (together with 4 other team members).

I did not know anything about the film in advance (not even the title) before watching it in Hamburg’s cinema “Streit’s”. However, I recognized it after the first 5 seconds as my brother’s style was easily recognizable.

I have to say, that it was really good and I was mightily impressed.

Apparently so was the jury: German actress Ulrike Grote announced the 1st place: “Bo”. I was totally stunned! WOW! Great work, Wolfram. I am really happy and proud!

It definitely deserves the prize (although the choice was hard, and the second-priced film “Delivery” was also amazing), and I am looking forward seeing this film on TV or as a pre-film in the movies in some time!

There is an article (German) in the Hamburger Abendblatt. From there you can also download a “small” version of the film (direct link here (50MB)). I recommend watching it (and that has nothing to do with being his brother).

P.S. Is the character’s “voice” really my brother’s?

Short Review:

The film differs from most other award entries in that it was not a computer animated 3d film, but a good old hand-drawn 2d animation. It is made in a comic-like style, and one can clearly see that it is drawn with love and great care for details. Watching the backgrounds alone makes you laugh.

The main themes of the film are ‘curiosity’ and ‘satisfaction’. You can watch it after work when tired without having to think at all, yet it has a certain message that goes deeper and analyzes human nature in a light-hearted and amusing way. The story is clever and has a nice and surprising twist at the end. Actually during the award showing, the audience fell for it, started clapping too early and was really surprised by the end.

This film sets itself apart from the other entries by its music and sound effects. While many other films relied on a very distracting sound-track, with loud background songs, Bo uses sound sparingly but effective. There is only one short main theme (Warning, you’ll whistle it all night in bed after watching the film), which is varied in genious manner (e.g. the protagonist whistles it). The character does not talk at all (apart from humming, moaning, etc), however is able to say a lot. I’ve heard long speeches that convey less content than Bo can do in a single “A-haa”. Simple sound effects such as tea-pot whistling, foot stomping are used to support the story, generally I found the sound well done.

All in all, I can really recommend watching it, besides being made by my brother (among 4 others), it is simply cute and funny.