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Cherry and Virgin Film Wins Award at Fantasia Int'l Film Fest

Variety reported on Saturday that Masanao Kawajiri's original film Cherry and Virgin won "Special Mention of the Jury" in the 2026 Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation section at the 30th annual Fantasia International Film Festival. The festival screened the world premiere of the film in the Animation Plus Section.

The film will open in 2027. The movie was originally announced in 2021, and was slated to open in 2022.

The festival is screening the North American premiere of the Sekiro: No Defeat anime in the Animation Plus Section, the international premiere of the live-action WIND BREAKER film, and the international premiere of the The Origin of Ultraman documentary.

The festival is also screening the world premiere of Grotesqqque, CloverWorks's three-part anime collection, the world premiere of two episodes from Strange: Junji Ito's Tales for Sleepless Nights (Strange -Itō Junji no Yoru mo Nemurenu Kimyō na Hanashi-), the North American premiere of ASMIK Ace and French studio Miyu Productions' A New Dawn (Hana Rokushō ga Akeru Hi ni) film, Canadian premiere of cocoon – One Summer of Girlhood (cocoon Aru Natsu no Shōjo-tachi Yori), the anime of Machiko Kyō's Cocoon manga, and the world premieres of several anime short films.

This year the Satoshi Kon Award for Best Animated Feature went to Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon's Blaise. Also in the animation category, Jorj Abou Mhaya's "Jeem 1983" won Best Short Film - Gold, Yeon-woo Kim's "Fingerbang" won Best Short Film - Silver, and Junar Kim's "The End of the World" won Best Short Film - Bronze.

The 30th Fantasia International Film Festival is being held from July 16 through August 2 in Montreal.

Source: Variety (William Earl)