The Emile Awards Committee is pleased to present the 2026 Lotte Reiniger Award to Witold Giersz .
Congratulations, mister Witold Giersz!
The Emile Awards Association pays tribute to leading figures of European animated cinema by awarding the Lotte Reiniger Lifetime Achievement Award. Lotte Reiniger was a film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation.
The prestigious Emile Lifetime Achievement award is given to an individual in recognition of their outstanding lifetime contribution to the art of animation.
This year the Lotte Reiniger Lifetime Achievement Award goes to a Polish director, scriptwriter, and educator who was born in 1927 and began his career in animation in 1950 at the Animated Film Production Cooperative in Bielsko-Biala Poland.He went on to found the Warsaw based Studio of Drawing Films in 1956, which, in 1958, was rechristened Studio of Film Minatures.
His debut as an animation director came in 1956 with The Secret of the Old Castle. Rejecting more traditional animation techniques in favor of abstract, material driven narratives, his breakthrough film was Maly Western (A Little Western) in 1960. The 5 minute film replaced drawings with dabs of color without lines, which he applied directly onto the film stock.
He has created more than 50 films in his long career including such well known pieces as The Red And The Black (1963), where he recreates a bullfight using splashes of vibrant colors, and A Horse (1967), where he employed a spatula instead of a brush to apply paint directly onto film.
Animated films for children have also played a major role in his career. His best known works for children are Please, Mr. Elephant and an animated adaptation of the cult Polish comic book series Papcio Chmiel.
His films have won numerous awards at internationally renowned festivals such as Cannes, Annecy, and Etiuda&Anima. He is also the recipient of numerous award for his outstanding contribution to animation and Polish culture. In 2008 he was awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for contributions to Polish Culture, the award of the Minister of Culture for Lifetime Achievement in Animated Film in 1979, and the Prime Minister’s Award for Contributions to Children’s and Youth Culture (1981).
He is a respected teacher whose lectures have influenced generations of young animators. Still animating at the age of 99, he is a very worthy 2026 EMILE LOTTE REINIGER LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT.
