Lily’s Driftwood Bay, the mixed animation children’s series, has been named Best Pre-School Series
at the annual prestigious British Animation Awards in London.
The British Animation Awards celebrate the finest quality in animation and the coveted Best Pre-School award was awarded to Lily’s Driftwood Bay, beating off stiff competition from the Clangers, Hey Duggee and over 100 other entries.
Lily’s Driftwood Bay has a star studded cast including Stephen Fry, Peter Mullan, Jane Horrocks and Richard Dormer who join Lily, voiced by local girl Orlagh O’Keefe in her daily adventures on Driftwood Bay. Lily’s Driftwood Bay has also won an IFTA, an Irish Animation Award, Broadcast Award, Parent’s Choice Award and been nominated for a BAFTA, a Bulldog Award, a Chicago International Film and Television Festival Award and to now win the Best Pre-School Series at the British Animation Awards is a real tribute to the programme.
Collecting the handmade award, Colin Williams said; “What an honour and what an award! The BAAs are awards for our industry by our industry and for our peers to recognise our work like this is so special. It takes over 90 people more than two years to bring a series of Lily’s Driftwood Bay to life so this award has been earned by the whole Sixteen South family.”
Judges said that given the extraordinarily strong line-up, after an agonising discussion, they were persuaded by the combination of aesthetic, voice performances and music in Lily’s Driftwood Bay and they paid particular credit to the brave and sensitive handling of the story told in the episode.
Colin said “Our winning episode, ‘Goodbye Seabird’ deals with the subject of death when Bull’s friend, Old Razorbill is washed up by the sea. The episode explores the need to mourn loss but more importantly to celebrate life and good times. We made this show to be a mirror to the real lives of children and reflect the world that they live in.”
Sixteen South is in production with series two which launches this year and will see Lily’s character develop and dig deeper into some of the difficult challenges and subjects children face.
Lily’s Driftwood Bay is produced by award-winning children’s television producers, Belfast based Sixteen South. It is the first international series of its kind to be created and produced completely in Northern Ireland. It has been sold to over 100 countries and airs locally on Nick Jr, Milkshake, RTÉ2, RTÉjr and Netflix. Lily’s Driftwood Bay is supported by Northern Ireland Screen.