Animation World Network

Anna Mantzaris' Please has won the Grand Prize in the International Competition at Animasyros 2026, which wrapped last week on the Greek island of Syros. Konstantinos Demis' The Dog took the Best Greek Film Award. The 19th edition ran seven days and screened 280 films from 50 countries across seven competition sections, six themed tributes, eight educational workshops and 30 Agora presentations.

Masoud Loghmani, who built and scaled creator monetization products at YouTube and TikTok, has launched Studio Jadu, an AI-powered animation studio that backs solo artists and small teams as they make original animated shows, build fan bases, and share in the revenue their work earns. The company, based in San Mateo, California, is backed by Khosla Ventures and Shakti VC.

Citadel returned to Prime Video this past May, with all seven episodes of its second season landing at once in more than 240 countries and territories. Showrunner David Weil brings back Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as spies Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, with Stanley Tucci as Bernard Orlick, all survivors of a destroyed intelligence agency who regroup against Manticore, the network of powerful families that brought it down. Anthony and Joe Russo's AGBO produces with Amazon MGM Studios.

Smoking in Japan is both rigidly restricted and highly visible. Puffing while walking on a Tokyo sidewalk is out, on pain of penalties, but there are designated "Smoking Areas," sectioned off by barriers, where large clusters of people blow their collective cloud. I'm not a smoker, so those places are mystery territories to me, like pachinko and mahjong parlors. For all its reputation for healthy living, smoking remains part of Japanese life.

Manchester Animation Festival (MAF), the UK's largest animation festival and its only Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying one, has unveiled its 2026 program, running November 8-12 at HOME and venues across Manchester.

Visual effects workers at Apple Studios have secured their first collective bargaining agreement with IATSE, winning minimum pay rates, employer-paid health care and retirement benefits, limits on working hours, artificial intelligence protections, and new safety provisions.

Oni Press has just launched a Kickstarter for "Adventure Time Deluxe Comics Library," a six oversized hardcover volume collection of more than 100 issues of the comics spun off Cartoon Network's animated series Adventure Time.

Brian and Stewie are headed to Hell for Halloween; AWN has an exclusive clip, “Stewie and Brian Let a Man Drown” from Family Guy's Happy Hell-o-ween, the animated series' Hulu-exclusive Halloween special premiering Monday, October 5, on Hulu and on Hulu on Disney+. In the special, Brian and Stewie find themselves in Hell — not an annoying day, the actual underworld — paying for 24 seasons' worth of bad behavior. When they manage to annoy even the Devil himself, they end up in charge.

Today's AWN Jobs Roundup column has 113 new listings from the Indeed Job Portal: Brandtackers, Electronic Arts, Flora Fountain, Game On Studio, Image Engine, Industrial Light & Magic and Piranha Games are each hiring for two, while Crafty Apes and DNEG and 97 more are each hiring for one. The list runs from senior and lead roles to entry-level positions and open talent calls, sorted by type and region, and every entry links straight to the posting.

World VFX Day is now taking talk and speaker submissions for its 2026 event, the annual livestream that spotlights artists, projects, technologies, trends and topics that impact the global visual effects and animation industries. The deadline is October 23; the main event streams December 8. Organizers curate roughly 30 to 40% of the program with event partners and sponsors; the rest is open to ideas from event supporters.