'The Letter' wins Best Animation: 5-11

Congratulations to children from Caedraw Primary School in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, whose film The Letter has won Best Animation: 5-11 (sponsored by The Walt Disney Studios) at the Into Film Awards 2026. The award was presented by broadcaster Sian Welby and Charlotte Tudor from Disney, along with Woody, Buzz and Jessie from Toy Story.

This marks the second year in a row that Caedraw Primary have won Best Animation: 5-11, although this year's group of young people was entirely different to last year's filmmakers. In fact, The Letter even acts as a sequel to their previous film, featuring the same character of Cae the Bear, who is based on their school mascot. It's a long-standing tradition that each child receives a Cae teddy bear when they leave after Year 6.

The Letter is a striking monochrome animation that sees Cae - now much older - feeling lonely since his son has left home. Deciding to reach out, he writes him a letter, but when it comes to posting it, that simple act turns into a much bigger ordeal than he could ever have imagined.

As Mr Scott Beale, Lead Adult and HLTA at Caedraw Primary explains: "The idea came from a suggested theme of loneliness which we feel is an issue in our local community. The story is initially in black and white to reflect the main character's loneliness and transitions into colour in the final scenes. This was inspired by The Wizard of Oz, which the children performed for their Christmas concert."

"The children first storyboarded the whole film by hand and then digitally. They were keen to get across the idea that everyone feels sad at times and it is not always possible for other people to fix things for you - sometimes you have to take the first step yourself."

The group had originally planned to create the whole film using silhouette puppet animation, but this proved too difficult within the time frame. They were able to adapt, and switched to using light boxes and top-down stop motion animation with cut-out puppets.

The children learnt a lot throughout the filmmaking process. Their film contains roughly 1,500 images, while around 20 minutes of footage was filmed in total - much of which was not used. "The children found it challenging to understand that not every scene could stay in the final edit", explained Beale. "Learning that story and pacing were more important than keeping every shot was a valuable lesson."

The group - ever keen to continue working on the film - also learned the importance of avoiding burnout during the painstaking stop motion animation process, and realised the importance of balancing entertainment and delivering a message. 

"The original storyboard was much darker, with very little relief", said Beale. "When we reviewed this version, it became clear that although the message was strong, it did not resonate in the way we hoped. It was simply too sad and did not make for good entertainment. The children recognised that a good story needs to communicate an important message, but it also needs to engage and entertain its audience. As a result, they refined the story to include moments of humour and warmth."