# SIGGRAPH 2026 Computer Animation Festival Reveals Winners, Including Best in Show "Apart"

_Event · published 2026-07-07_

SIGGRAPH 2026, taking place 19–23 July in Los Angeles under Festival Director Marina Antunes, has announced the winners of its Computer Animation Festival. Best in Show goes to "Apart," a South African–American co-production written by Spike Lee and directed by Pola Maneli of Social Popcorn Films. The film blends traditional 2D frame-to-frame, cut-out, 3D, and 2.5D animation across roughly 18,000 frames produced by a team of more than 250 creatives, telling the story of a forbidden friendship in apartheid South Africa.

The Best Student Project award goes to "Beyond Words," a French student production built on the team's proprietary "Hunter" motion-capture pipeline, featuring over 130 shots with fur and cloth simulation and complex facial animation across six hand-modeled characters. The Jury's Choice award went to "18 Months," a stop-motion film by Paulo Garcia and Natalia Gouvea about a same-sex couple's adoption journey. A trailer previewing the full festival program is now available.

## Sources
- [befores & afters](https://beforesandafters.com/2026/07/08/preview-the-computer-animation-festival-at-siggraph-in-this-stunning-trailer/)
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