Indeed another proud moment for Pakistan as Arafat Mazhar’s animated short, Swipe, is receiving well-deserved recognition in the global market. The thought-provoking short film is the first Pakistani film to feature at Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2021 as well as Animafest Zagreb, and the list of its achievements goes on with a Special Jury Award at ANIMAFEST International Animation Festival.
The director shared the news on his Twitter and Instagram as well as Swipe’s official account.
“We haven’t been able to announce this properly yet because we’ve been busy with some other cool things but this happened,” read his Instagram story in which he confirmed the news report regarding the award.
The 14-minute animated short was released in November 2020. Swipe tells the story of a boy who is addicted to an app that crowdsources death sentences. The film examines extremism resulting from excessive accessibility to technology. According to the film’s official synopsis, “Swipe is a hand-painted animated short film about Pakistan made by a team of 20 Pakistani animators, musicians, storytellers, and actors over the course of one year.”
Read: Arafat Mazhar’s Swipe makes it to international animation festivals
The director has listed the number of nods the short has scored so far. “How Swipe has done so far. 4 Oscar/BAFTA Qualifying festivals. We didn’t apply a lot of film festivals which denies us the right to make film freely accessible (you can’t screen at Venice if you release your film for free). Proud that we made it free AND received top laurels,” he tweeted.
how @swipefilm has done so far. 4 Oscar/BAFTA Qualifying festivals. We didn’t apply a lot of film festivals which denies us the right to make film freely accessible (you can’t screen at venice if you release your film for free). proud that we made it free AND received top laurels pic.twitter.com/tzeGwWjkSs
— ArafatMazhar 🤖 (@ArafatMazhar) September 7, 2021
You can watch it here:
