Tell the jury about the animation used and summarise any relevant challenges or techniques.

Our intention was to immerse the audience in Caster's world. The decision to work in frame-by-frame cel-animation was deliberate to dramatise the extraordinary biology of these athletes and create the impact that would get Caster’s story noticed. Creating 2D Cel-Animation is always a challenging technique – conceptually almost every frame (cel) of the animation is hand-drawn and highly crafted. This means the level of complexity of the drawing defines the virtuosity of the animation from morphology and lenses to camera angles and transitions. A conceptual approximation to visualise just how much hard work was poured into crafting this film, think of all the illustrators you know, and how many of them could illustrate a frame of Born This Way. Now multiply that for 2k+ frames. To add to the complexity, 3D was designed for two scenes to bring more dimensionality for a unified organic and gestural art style.

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

Caster Semenya, Olympic Gold Medallist and World Champion was born with hyperandrogenism and World Athletics has banned her from running in events between 400 m and one mile unless she takes hormone drugs. The film demonstrates the insight that most champion athletes are born with extraordinary biology. But unlike Caster, they are celebrated, not reviled or banned. The film questions why Caster should be banned and highlights her fight to run free, without drugs. It ends with a call to sign a petition to overturn the ban. The 2D frame-by-frame cel-animation was a deliberate approach to enhance the storytelling, creating a dream-like ambience which translates Caster's emotions into metaphors. The animation which features a swimmer, sprinter and swimmer inspired by iconic athletes, is packed with dynamic angles and fast fluid transitions to dramatise their extraordinary biology and how they are honoured in contrast to the pain of Caster being sidelined.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

Olympic Gold Medallist and World Champion Caster Semenya won gold in the 800 m in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. Following protests on some fronts, World Athletics (then IAAF) subjected her to multiple tests and humiliating medical examinations. She passed them but they banned her anyway. She can't run in events between 800m and 1 mile unless she takes hormone drugs. She has appealed against this several times, but failed. Caster was born a woman and is legally recognised as a woman. In February 2020, she filed an appeal to the European Court of Human Right to overturn the World Athletics ban – the result is pending. In line with Unilever's Positive Beauty vision, Lux believes that no woman should be judged for how they look or be stripped of being a woman. We are championing Caster's fight for her right to run as a woman, free of drugs.