French filmmaker wins Nicktoons top prize

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- French filmmaker Arthur de Pins was announced Monday as the winner of the $10,000 Grand Prize in the "Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival."

His animated short "La Révolution des Crabes," was chosen from hundreds of entries by a panel that included actor Mark Hamill, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" co-creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, director/animator Mike Gabriel and 10-year-old cartoon connoisseur Noah Webb, Nicktoons said in a news release.

The film festival was founded in 2004 to showcase the work of independent animation filmmakers and Nicktoons televised the entries throughout the month of August.

The winning entry was a humorous black-and-white cartoon about the lives of crabs. California Institute of the Arts student J.G. Quintel won both the Producers' Choice Award and the Nextoons Student Animator Award for his short, "The Naïve Man from Lolliland," about an ambassador who loses his cool during a benign encounter.