The Gift

Animation is all about style – if you can find something distinctive you’re on to a winner.

Jessica Langford has style by the bucketload. By using sand to animate her story she gives it a fluid, impressionistic feel, perfectly suited to her fable about a girl who meets a sea king beneath the waves, only for time to play a trick on her.

Like fellow Scotland-based animator Selina Cobley, Langford has taken folk myths – in this case Orkadian and Japanese – and crafted them together to create a distinctive narrative brimming with imagination.

The grains give texture to her tale, which – in good storytelling tradition – is bittersweet.

Mention must also be made of composer Sally Beamish, who previously scored the excellent No Man's Land and comes up trumps again here.

More from both of you, please.