How to Train Your Dragon is on fire at Disney-boycotted animation awards

As a clear Oscars frontrunner, as well as the year's best reviewed and highest grossing movie, Pixar's Toy Story 3 might have appeared a shoo-in to take the top gong at the annual Annie awards, presented by the International Animated Film Society (Asifa) at the weekend. But a controversial boycott by Disney, which owns the firm behind movies such as Wall-E, Ratatouille and The Incredibles, saw rival film How to Train Your Dragon sweep the board on Saturday night . An ebullient tale of vikings and winged beasties, DreamWorks Animation's movie won 10 gongs, including the top award for best animated feature at the ceremony in Los Angeles. Pixar managed just one gong, best animated short for Day and Night, after refusing to submit movies for consideration, campaign or screen its films for critics. Disney's disagreement with the Annies has to do with the way Asifa judges movies, which the mouse house asserts favours rival DreamWorks, the firm which makes the Shrek films, Madagascar movies and this year's Megamind. Two years ago, Dreamworks' film Kung Fu Panda was the big winner at the ceremony, beating out Pixar's Wall-E, which went on to take the Oscar for best animation and was also the best-reviewed film of 2008. Disney/Pixar did triumph last year for Up, but continues to insist that a lack of restrictions on membership of Asifa favours DreamWorks. Asifa, meanwhile, says it has resolved any issues over voting irregularities by introducing a rule which means only animation professionals can vote. Disney/Pixar's films did feature at the awards but failed to achieve success, bar that of Day and Night. Annie nominating committees can put forward any films they choose for consideration, even if those movies have not been officially submitted by their studios. "I understand there's lot of issues, and the Animated Film Society needs to work on that," former Disney animation president Peter Schneider, who was at the ceremony to accept a special achievement award, told the Hollywood Reporter on Saturday night . "The animation community has been a tight community. Now that animation is starting to have great success in the commercial world, in Hollywood, to see it in fracture in terms of people's support, it makes me sad."