Not all stop-motion animated films are only for children, as titles such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Fantastic Mr Fox have made clear. And neither is My Life as a Zucchini, in which a little boy, nicknamed Zucchini, is placed in an orphanage after he inadvertently kills his alcoholic mother (the accident occurs off-screen).

Visually, the colors are bright and the characters look somewhat naïve, with their huge eyes in their huge heads. But emotionally, the film is finely chiseled and very mature as it charts how Zucchini and his equally parentless peers slowly come into their own, with the help of each other, and a handful of those crazy older creatures: adults.

The young and talented Swiss filmmaker Claude Barras has an ace up his sleeve in the form of French writer/director Celine Sciamma, a coming-of-age specialist who has worked on such French films as Girlhood and Being 17, and who cowrote this beautiful film's intimate and perceptive screenplay.

Winner: Best Feature and Audience Awards, Annecy Animation 

Claude Barras – Director (January 10 only)