The 2020 recipient of the Murakami Award is Robert Cullen, creative director and founder of Boulder Media.

The Murakami Award recognises significant achievement in the field of animation. This year it will be taking place during the YouTube Student Animation Awards in the Skellig Hotel.

Previous Winners

2019

Nora Twomey Co-founder and Creative Director of Cartoon Saloon.

As a Creative Director at Cartoon Saloon, Nora oversees the development of the company’s slate of productions such as Puffin Rock, the pre-school series narrated by Chris O’ Dowd and acquired by Netflix. Nora directed the multi-award winning short films From Darkness and Cúilín Dualach [Backwards Boy].

Nora was Co-Director of Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar® nominated animated feature The Secret Of Kells and Head of Story on their Oscar® nominated Song Of The Sea.

Nora directed the Golden Globe ® nominated “The Breadwinner” which was released in the US and Canada in December 2017 to huge critical acclaim. It is based on the internationally acclaimed young adult novel of the same name by Canadian author Deborah Ellis. It was co-produced with Canada’s Aircraft Pictures, Luxembourg’s Melusine Productions and in association with Jolie Pas Productions.

2018

Darragh O’ Connell and Cathal Gaffney from Brown Bag Films.

2017

Aidan Hickey

Aidan Hickey studied painting at the National College of Art, and English and History at UCD. After college he exhibited paintings in many Galleries around Dublin including The Municipal Gallery’s 1966 celebration of 1916. Having taught for six years, he took a Postgraduate Diploma in Animated Film-making at Hornsey College of Art. Back in Dublin he worked as a free-lance illustrator. From 1979 he produced animated films for RTE, winning numerous festival prizes. He wrote and directed “The Boy who had No Story”, winner of Best Children’s Film and Best Animation at the 2004 Irish Film and Television Awards.

2016

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman met at Walt Disney studios in 1972 and there began a friendship forged by a mutual passion for restoring the heritage of classical animation to today’s animated films. While being remembered with fondness for An American Tail in 1984, the legacy of Bluth and Goldman is much greater than the films they created – the existing animation industry in Ireland can be traced back to the studio’s recruitment, training and development of local talent. So, it is with much pride that Don Bluth and Gary Goldman were presented with the Murakami Award for 2016.

2015

Tomm Moore

Tomm Moore is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Cartoon Saloon. He founded Cartoon Saloon in 1999 with Paul Young while studying animation at Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin. Over the company’s history, he has worked as Director, Art Director, Storyboarder, Animator and Illustrator on a range of projects from commercials to service work for feature films and TV series, as well as a number of short film projects.

Having completed his first feature film The Secret of Kells (Best Animated Feature Nominee: Academy Awards ®), his second completed feature, The Song of the Sea, was screened across Europe and released in America and garnered Academy Awards and Annie Awards nominations for Best Animated Feature. Tomm was also a member of the once secret crime-fighting group “The Living Shadows” but failed miserably as a master of stealth, which lead to a lifelong love of comic books and animation.

2014

Richie Baneham

Richard Baneham is an Academy Award and BAFTA winner for Best Visual Effects for his work on Avatar. He has also won awards for his work as an Animation Supervisor on Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers and The Return of the King . Richie hails from a traditional animation background. He made the transition to CG while working on The Iron Giant, one of Richie’s favorites. His other credits include; The Chronicles of Narnia; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Cats and Dogs.

2013

Jimmy Murakami

At Animation Dingle, March 2013, Jimmy T. Murakami, (村上輝明), received the inaugural Murakami Award for his lifetime achievement in Animation. Of the event, he said “I have been to hundreds of film festivals, all over the globe, for what seems to be the last hundred years, and in my opinion the Dingle Film Festival is the best among them all”.