LoveLove Films are delighted to announce that our short animated film ‘We Save Land’ has won the Main Prize – Children and Youth – Prize of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic at the Ekotopfilm / Envirofilm Awards 2017.

‘We Save Land’ was conceived when LoveLove Films were approached by Utah-based non-profit organisation Summit Land Conservancy to produce a short animated film. Summit Land Conservancy exists to raise public awareness of wildlife and land preservation and is an integral part of helping to preserve the natural landscapes and rural ways of life in Park City and Summit County, Utah.

Although the film was at times extremely challenging to create, due to it being predominantly hand-drawn, the good reception to the film makes the late nights and gallons of coffee worth it (though I’m sure the bags under our eyes and our coffee-stained-teeth would have disagreed).

To create the film, our animators used both hand drawn and computer-generated animation techniques to create a heart-warming film depicting a young boy’s carefree adventures in the natural landscape. Sadly, the boy’s long, happy days and nights spent playing in the woods and camping beneath the stars is abruptly brought to a halt when diggers and earthmovers roll in. The film was used by Summit Land Conservancy to raise awareness of their charity work and also as part of their PC Live, PC Give fundraising drive.

Still from We Save Land

We are absolutely thrilled that the film has been won the award at the Ekotopfilm Festival based in Slovakia. The festival highlights and raises awareness to both pressing environmental issues and the important role of community media. The intent of the festival is to demonstrate the power of film in communicating important issues and sustainable development themes.

When Summit Land Conservancy first approached us to create an animation, we initially pitched a 1-minute project that was extremely simple line drawing, however as we started on the development artwork, the LoveLove team may have gotten quite excited. It’s not often a client will give you ‘free rein’ to create. The brief was simply ‘we like what you do and we would love an animation to help raise awareness’.

Our Managing Director Georgina Hurcombe states, “personally I’m super proud of the whole team and the details in the artwork are both charming and extremely detailed, just take a look at the birds nest – its extremely intricate. Having this creative freedom and animating a subject matter that we all felt was so important meant that the team really did put in 110%.”

Ekotopfilm / Envirofilm is an International Festival of Sustainable Development Films and is the oldest and the biggest of its kind in the world, having ran for 44 years. The awards ceremony takes place on 26^th May in the Hall of Mirrors of the Primate’s Palace, in Bratislava. Unfortunately, we at LoveLove Films are busy in production of a TV advert so cannot make it, but we are delighted that the British Embassy will be there to collect the award for us.