The fifth VES Award for ARTFX
ARTFX wins its fifth VES Award with Azimuth. The school had previously received awards for Terra Nova (2019), Green (2021), Silhouette (2023), and Pittura (2024). ARTFX films have been selected 18 times since the inception of the VES Awards. This latest award confirms ARTFX’s status as the most award-winning French school in this leading international competition.
"My heartfelt congratulations go out to the students of ARTFX for the remarkable honor their film Azimuth received at the Visual Effects Society Awards in Los Angeles. This international recognition attests to the exceptional quality of their work, their creativity, and their technical mastery. It also illustrates the strength of their collaboration and their ability to meet the industry’s highest standards. With five VES awards won, three of them consecutively, this success at the highest level demonstrates that this is not an isolated achievement. It also confirms a solid educational commitment that produces exceptional artists year after year. A big congratulations to our students and to our entire team who accompany them on a daily basis!" - Dominique Peyronnet, Director of the ARTFX Montpellier Campus
Expertise in teaching at ARTFX
In a context where artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming the visual arts industry, ARTFX continues to champion a pedagogical approach based on:
- Mastering artistic fundamentals
- Meeting rigorous technical expectations
- Becoming immersed in international production standards
Each final-year project is designed as a truly professional studio production. Students work in teams, following structured pipelines and facing constraints similar to those encountered in the real world.
This approach explains the school’s consistent success in international rankings. In 2025, ARTFX was ranked, for the 7th consecutive year, as the world’s top VFX school in terms of the quality of its student productions by the independent jury The Rookies.
2026: an exceptional year for the school
The start of this year also marks another distinction: the film Two Kings, directed by students from the ARTFX campus in Lille, won an award at PIDS Enghien, France’s largest festival dedicated to visual effects.
These parallel successes demonstrate the consistency of teaching across ARTFX’s various campuses, and the strength of the model developed by the school since it was founded in 2004.
“A special screening in Montpellier for an award considered the highest global recognition in the field of visual effects.”
The public will have an opportunity to discover these award-winning works and share a special moment with Montpellier’s cultural and creative industries ecosystem.
"A short film directed by students from ARTFX Montpellier stood out at a ceremony bringing together the biggest international productions. This victory once again confirms the excellence and artistic standards upheld by the school. “
”The VES Awards represent the highest level of recognition in the visual effects industry. Receiving this distinction again is a source of immense pride. It recognizes the talent, audacity, and high standards of our students and faculty. It confirms ARTFX’s position among the world’s leading institutions in special effects” – Simon VANESSE, President of ARTFX Schools
International recognition for a student film
Azimuth is a VFX-driven 3D short film directed by ten students from the Montpellier campus — Martin Bluy, Cassandre Cinier, Chloé Coudray, Thomas Courtois, Mathis Giraudeau, Damien Lagadeuc, François-Clément Michez, Thomas Teisseire Lievin, Hellois Marre, and Rémi Vivenza.
The film tells the story of Hadenna, a young warrior traveling across the galaxy in search of a cure capable of giving her brother Theos back his true body. It is an ambitious science fiction tale driven by a rich visual universe and remarkable technical mastery.
The students utilized professional pipelines and industry-standard tools such as Houdini, Arnold, Maya, Nuke, and Substance Painter, combining CGI, environment design, FX, lighting, and compositing.
An event in Montpellier to celebrate this award
To celebrate this new international award, ARTFX is organizing, in partnership with the Diagonal cinema in Montpellier, a special screening of the five student films honored at the Visual Effects Society Awards.
The public is invited to discover these award-winning works during a special screening on March 25, 2026, at 6:30 PM at the Diagonal Cinema (5 rue de Verdun, 34000 Montpellier). A unique opportunity to honor the talent, creativity, and technical excellence of ARTFX students, and to share this global recognition with the people of Montpellier. On this occasion, ARTFX also invites the entire cultural and creative industries ecosystem of Montpellier to come celebrate this new collective victory.
