This was just reported on BlenderNation a few minutes ago. Details thusfar are pretty thin, but all in all, this is great news.
Congratulations to the whole Gooseberry team!
Annnnd… a bit more on this. Here’s the official response from the SIGGRAPH jury (as tweeted by Ton).
All in all, this is quite a special thing.
Nice. Congrats. It is a milestone in the opens source world that animations with that quality can be made with free software.
The little match girl’s demo reel won the special jury’s prize.
Tearjerker story.
Congratulations.
BTW wasn’t there already a thread about CL where some people could throw a tantrum and some others could throw a tantrum against the tantrum’s throwers?
Congrats to the team! This is an important achievement indeed!
Congratulations to those involved. This will surely boost Blenders profile?
congrats well deserved
Great win! Congrats to the team. Well deserved. 
Well deserved indeed, one of the most beautifully animated short I have seen come out of Blender.
That’s a really nice award. Congrats to the team! Great job.
That’s great news for the entire Blender community!
Absolutely no.
If you read it carefully you’ll see that it’s the blender’s profile (the touching “back story”) the real thing that boosted CL to win this special mention award.
So you mean that it was a sympathy vote? Wow look at that kid he can read and write and he’s only four! ??
Well, in that case we oughta give LazyVirus a prize as well: If you actually read it says “This was very pretty, and thematically unique(whoa, tackling suicide???), on top of that it’s super cool it’s made by an open source foundation”. Saying it’s only a pity vote is like giving someone who asks for coffee with milk, only a glass of milk.
But of course, we can’t have any positive achievement for the Blender Institute that isn’t the whole world’s acknowledgement of Blender as 3d program Jesus.
Wow a “direct attack” and no one said nothing… life is easier when you’re the good man.
Waiting for my prize, I’m just writing my thanks speech with crayons mommy gave me for my 3rd birthday.
I let everybody see what they want to see.
I just follow what I’ve learned from my kindergarten’s teacher this year: “Excusatio non petita accusatio manifesta” that is the basic thing about communications I’ve learned from my coloring book about communication techniques.
Can I have my opinion or I must have turned 6 for that?
bye bye Lazy!
Congrats to Ton and dev’s…Damn Blender…!!!
From a NOOB…
It is incredible to see what has happened in Blender. the 2 years I’ve known Blender.
I don’t dare to think of where blender will be in 2 year’s if more volunteered…Puff Puff
HB…
Tai
“a pity vote” is a dumb way to look at this. The jury recognized the importance of the BF mission, the content itself was also good enough to credibly receive the prize. IMO that’s 2 wins for BF, not just one. As far as this particular open movie project is concerned, I say "mission accomplished’ and congratulations!