An Australian animated comedy, praised for its dark humour, Memoir of a Snail won the top prize at France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Saturday.

The festival, one of the most important in the industry, awarded its Feature Film Cristal to Adam Elliot’s film, which had its world premiere.

Memoir of a Snail is filmed in stop-motion like other classics in the same genre, such as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

It tells the story of a young Australian girl’s passion for snails as she navigates being separated from her paraplegic father, who dies, and her brother, who is placed with a different family.

The Jury Prize and Audience Prize for a feature film went to a Franco-Belgian-Latvian film, “Flow” by Gints Zilbalodis, screened at the Cannes Festival in the Un Certain Regard selection. 

Sophie Roze’s short film “Une guitare a la mer” won both the Cristal and the Audience Award for a TV film.

In a press release, the festival boasted of a record attendance, with 17,400 festival-goers from 103 countries in one week.