Not one but TWO wins were celebrated at the Dublin Animation Film Festival over the weekend by the Brown Baggers!

Both ANYA and The Battle for Ravenwind received one of these beauties:

Our short film ANYA, in conjunction with To Russia With Love, was awarded the DAFF Award in the Community Recognition category! 

ANYA is a five minute animated film, directed by Damien O'Connor, produced by Edel Byrne and created by a team of volunteers at Brown Bag Films. Created as a unique initiative with To Russia With Love to help raise funds for the charity, helping them to continue changing the lives of orphaned and abandoned children.

ANYA Director Damien O'Connor said,

“It is amazing to win the Community Recognition Award at the Dublin Animation Festival and I want to thank both the DAFF and the crew for making it happen. Unfortunately the win is over shadowed by the fact that To Russia With Love are currently in a financial crisis - in short they desperately need money to survive, they receive no Government funding and only manage via our generous donations, so I wanted to again appeal to anyone who enjoys Anya please, please send a donation, large or small, to help To Russia With Love continue to give these children a future.”

If you would like to donate please visit www.torussiawithlove.ie. Or text HUG to 50300 and DONATE €4.

100% of text cost goes to To Russia With Love across most network providers. Some providers apply VAT which means that a minimum of €3.26 goes to To Russia With Love Service provided by LikeCharity 014433890

Our short film The Battle for Ravenwind: The Right to Radios, created in conjunction with Fighting Words, has been awarded the DAFF Award for Best Under 18s category short film!

The short was created by a great team of kids from Fighting Words in collaboration with our own Craig Kane, Martin Kelly and former Brown Bagger Sascha Paladino!

The Battle for Ravenwind Co-director Craig Kane said,

“We’re delighted to be part of a collaboration with such an inspiring and creative group of kids, and the award is a testament to their wonderful imaginations. The Fighting Words creative camps, and its spirited volunteers, give them the opportunity to produce original and thoroughly exciting stories for all ages to enjoy. We were honoured to be able to help them take their tales to the next level as an animated short, with the help of our brilliant in-house artists here at Brown Bag Films.”

Take a look at the Making-Of: The Battle for Ravenwind with some glimpses of the movie and commentary from the gang who made it:

Check out some of the photos from the ceremony:

Big THANKS to our collaborators at To Russia With Love and Fighting Words!

Hope to be back again next year!