THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Legendary animation director Arnab Chaudhuri has been named as the recipient of this year's Legend of Animation award instituted by the Toonz Media Group (TMG). The award will be posthumously conferred to Arnab at the Animation Masters Summit (AMS) 2020- Digital Edition. that will be held from July 20 to 24 over the Zoom platform.

Arnab, who passed away on December 25, 2019, had made significant contributions to the Indian animation industry. He was the director of 'Arjun the Warrior Prince', the only animation film from India that has been longlisted for the prestigious Academy Awards.

He was an alumnus of the National Institute of Design(NID), Ahmedabad and had worked with several leading entertainment organisations such as Turner, Walt Disney and Channel V.

The award is being conferred on him posthumously for his great contribution to Indian animation industry as well as to the entertainment industry.

“Arnab was a true genius who was always ahead of his time. Apart from his astounding creativity, he was also much loved and admired by the people who worked with him. He has collaborated with Toonz at multiple levels for several projects and often gave master classes for our in-house artists. Arnab’s untimely death is a heavy loss for the creative fraternity in India. The Legend of Animation Award is given away every year at Animation Masters Summit to honour a legend from the field of animation in India. This year, the Award Committee was unanimous in their decision to confer the award to Arnab posthumously,” said P. Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group.

The award will be symbolically accepted by Arnab Chaudhuri's wife Ashmia Chaudhuri at the inaugural session of the AMS 2020 on July 20.

The five-day event will also witness sessions by masters from several fields of media and entertainment across the globe. Renowned cinematographer Ravi K Chandran, music composer Shantanu Moitra, Academy Award-winning character animator Sajan Skaria, acclaimed animation feature editor and ACE Eddie Award winner Fabienne Rawley will be part of the master sessions.

AMS is a not-for-profit event organised by the Toonz Media Group to bring together some of the most eminent figures in the entertainment field.