The official site of the 44th Annual Annie Awards announced their final nominees. The awards ceremony will be held on February 4, 2017.

These are the nominees for the Best Animated Feature – Independent category:

• Long Way North – Produced by Sacrebleu Productions, Maybe Movies, Norlum Studios, France 3 Cinéma and 2 Minutes
• Miss Hokusai – Production I.G
• My Life As A Zucchini – Rita Productions, Blue Spirit Productions, Gebeka Films, KNM
• The Red Turtle – Studio Ghibli – Wild Bunch – Why Not Productions
• Your Name. – CoMix Wave Films

 Makoto Shinkai and Michael Dudok de Wit are also nominated in the category Outstanding Achievement, Directing in an Animated Feature Production.

Other notable anime nominations:

The Red Turtle: Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in an Animated Production
Composer Laurent Perez del Mar (The Red Turtle) – Music in an Animated Feature Production
Writer Pascale Ferran (The Red Turtle) – Writing in an Animated Feature Production

Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor) is going to receive the Winsor McCay award (1869 – 1934, American cartoonist and animator) for his career contributions to the art of animation.