Dingle Awards carry on despite COVID-19

Even though Animation Dingle was cancelled, the Student Awards and Young Animator of the Year prize were handed out digitally this weekend.

March 23, 2020

The show must go on, and even though Animation Dingle 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns, the 2020 YouTube Kids Animation Dingle Student Awards still took place digitally via a live-stream. Students from all over the world competed in categories for Best Irish, Best International and Best Director titles. In the the prestigious Young Animator of the Year competition, sponsored by Disney Channels, Katie Elger took home for Life in Plastic (pictured).

Orion Ross, the VP of original programming animation for Disney’s media networks in Europe & Africa, said in a statement that Life in Plastic won because it was “a complete environmental story with an emotional punch.”

Silver went to Save Our Souls by Aaron Gillespie from Summerhill College, and Bronze went to Starfish by Kellie Flaherty.

The awards were judged by Suzanne Kelly, group head of children’s young people’s programming at RTE; Eimear O’Mahony, executive producer of children’s and young people’s programming at RTE; Louise Bucknole, the VP of programming for Viacom International Media Networks kids in UK & Ireland; Cecilia Persson, VP of programming and content strategy for Turner EMEA Kids, acquisitions and production international; Peter Lord, the co-founder and creative director of Aardman Animation; Darragh O’Connell, group creative director of Brown Bag Films and 9 Story Media Group; Nicole Rivera, the VP of Cartoon Network; and Chris Dicker, the head of development at JAM Media.

The complete list of Animation Dingle Student Awards is below:

Best Irish

Beekeeper, Robyn Conroy, (IADT)