The 49th Annie Awards progress to the virtual March ceremony

ASIFA-Hollywood's Board of Directors announced today that its 49th Annual Annie Awards, which recognizes the best of the year in animation, will move to a virtual format rather than a live ceremony originally scheduled for Saturday, February 26. . Reasons for the change are mainly due to the growing concern over the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

The Annies will be live streamed on Saturday 12 March at 19pm. PT. The live stream link will be free and available to anyone who wants to see the ceremony and a full livestream recording will be available on the Annie Awards website the next day (www.annieawards.org).

“When we announced that the Annies would be in person this year on February 26, the Omicron variant wasn't even on the horizon,” commented Frank Gladstone, executive director of ASIFA. “But now it is here and so highly contagious that, after much debate and discussion, the board of directors of ASIFA has decided, with great caution, to once again move on to a virtual ceremony. We also moved the event date by two weeks to give our production team time to collect and modify the huge amount of additional material needed to build the virtual ceremony. ”

The Annie Awards span 36 categories and include Best Animated Film, Best Independent Animated Film, Special Productions, Sponsored Films, Short Films, Student Films and Outstanding Individual Achievements, as well as honorary jury awards.