The Annecy International Animation Film Festival is nearly here. The annual film festival and market takes place from June 8 to June 14, in a gorgeous town that served as the inspiration for Belle’s village in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (yes really). And this year’s slate is overflowing with must-see screenings and panels.
Among the special screenings this year are Andy Serkis’ long-awaited take on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm;” Michel Gondry’s “Maya, Give Me Another Title” (he’ll also be receiving an Honorary Cristal award this year “in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the vitality of animation”); Genndy Tartakovsky’s R-rated “Fixed;” and “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants,” the new feature from Paramount Animation. Additionally, Pixar will screen their new feature “Elio.”
There will be exciting presentations from Disney, who will reveal a first-look at footage from “Zootopia 2,” courtesy of director (and Walt Disney Animation Studios CCO) Jared Bush, show an episode of Marvel Studios’ “Eyes of Wakanda,” and present an episode of “The Simpsons,” along with a conversation with creator Matt Groening, director David Silverman and writer Matt Selman. There will also be the premiere of a new “Star Wars: Visions” short called “Black,” which is in competition, alongside a “Star Wars: Tales of the Empire” installment “Devoted,” which also is in competition.
Sony Pictures Animation will be showcasing their animated basketball comedy “GOAT” and DreamWorks Animation will feature “Bad Guys 2.” Warner Bros. Animation will have a panel devoted to 25 years of Cartoon Network Studios, with Craig McCracken, Tartakovsky, Rebecca Sugar, Adam Uto and J.G. Quintel, along with an Adult Swim showcase of season 3 of “Smiling Friends.” (Warner Bros. Studios Animation will be on hand to preview “The Cat in the Hat.”)
Netflix will be showing off their new animated “Stranger Things” project, “Stranger Things: Tales from ’85,” with producer Eric Robles and screen two clips from the upcoming animated feature “In Your Dreams,” written and directed by Alex Woo. They’ll also have Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of “Bojack Horseman,” talking about his new Netflix animated series “Long Story Short,” plus screening the very first episode. For the first time ever they will also have a dedicated Animated Series Studio Focus, giving audiences an in-depth look at our full animation series slate. Series included will be everything from preschool (“Dr. Seuss’s Horton!”) to adult animated series (“Blue Eye Samurai” season 2, “Magic: The Gathering”), to family titles (“Ghostbusters,” “Minecraft”), and comedy (“Haunted Hotel”).
And Paramount, in addition to “The SpongeBob Movie,” will be presenting “Aang: The Last Airbender,” the feature-length animated spinoff the beloved animated series, from director Lauren Montgomery.
Among the movies being screened at the festival are “A Magnificent Life” from visionary French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet; “All You Need is Kill,” a Japanese animated feature based on the same source material as the Tom Cruise movie “Edge of Tomorrow;” and a French/Brazilian adaption of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” Might be worth keeping in mind that “Flow” and “Memoir of a Snail,” both juggernauts heading into the awards season last year, got their first big breaks at Annecy.
Like we said: this year is stacked.
TheWrap spoke to Annecy artistic director Marcel Jean, who said, “The features selection is stronger than ever this year. It’s not every year that you say, ‘Okay, all of the films that are in competition could be awarded. It will really be between the jury members, what they want to recognize – if they want to recognize a technical achievement or a political engagement or a risk. Because a lot of films are saying very strong thing about the world that we live in.”
Jean said that Gondry coming back to the festival had been in the works for a while. He met with Gondry in Los Angeles in February 2020, about coming to that year’s festival. Of course the global pandemic canceled the festival. “It was impossible to have him before this year, and this year he was available,” Jean said. This led to a focus on animated music videos, with filmmakers including Gondry, Raman Djafari (who also designed this year’s festival psoter), Steve Cutts, Victor Haegelin and Jérôme Combe and Fortiche, the studio behind “Arcane,” who got their start doing music videos. “And they still do music videos around ‘Arcane,’” Jean added.
When we asked about “SpongeBob,” Jean said that Paramount, between “SpongeBob,” their upcoming “Smurfs” projects and things like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” which premiered at the festival two years ago (a sequel is on the way, “Paramount is becoming a specialist in these kinds of strange and funny creatures.”
One element of this year’s festival that Jean is particularly fond of us the animated intro for the panels and screenings, which this year will be handled by Warner Bros. Jean said that last year, before the screening of “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” the “Looney Tunes” movie, he was backstage with Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation. Jean gestured for Register to come with him and together they watched what Jean referred to as “the partners trailer.” “I said, ‘Would you like to do it for next year?’” Jean explained. “Sam said, ‘Yes, I would like to do it and if the studio doesn’t give me the green light, I will pay for it myself.’” And thus – it was done.
Below are the films in competition.
In the Official competition:
• Allah is Not Obliged by Zaven Najjar, based on the book of the same name by Ahmadou
Kourouma – WIP 2024 (Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg).
“For his first feature film, Zaven Najjar rose to the challenge of adapting Ahmadou Kourouma’s novel Allah is Not Obliged. It’s a tall order given the book’s raw, unusual language, which the director manages to preserve in this first-person narrative of a child soldier.”
• A Magnificent Life by Sylvain Chomet, based on Confidences by Marcel Pagnol (France,Luxembourg, Belgium). Release date 15th October 2025 – Wild Bunch Distribution.
“Sylvain Chomet makes his comeback with this feature film dedicated to Marcel Pagnol. It is such a delight to see the filmmaker’s sophisticated graphics again, and for the first time he uses dialogue to capture the musical Marseille accent.”
• Arco by Ugo Bienvenu (France).
“True to his graphic style, Ugo Bienvenu offers us an astonishing first science-fiction feature film for all the family, in which a 10-year-old girl takes in a boy of the same age from the future.”
• ChaO by Yasuhiro Aoki (Japan).
“This whimsical tale comes to us from Japan, with its assertive graphic style and bold colours, somewhat reminiscent of Masaaki Yuasa and Taiyō Matsumoto.”
• Dandelion’s Odyssey by Momoko Seto – WIP 2024 (Belgium, France). Release 2026 GEBEKA Films
“It is an understatement to say that Momoko Seto’s debut feature was eagerly awaited! We are delighted to discover that, from the very first seconds of the film, we were fascinated by this original imagery, a skillful blend of scientific shooting techniques and digital animation. Like dandelion seeds, we are hurtling along a strange and perilous journey…”
• Death Does Not Exist by Félix Dufour-Laperrière – WIP 2024 (Canada, France).
“Félix Dufour-Laperrière, who won an award in the Contrechamp selection in 2021 with Archipel, returns to Annecy with his third feature. Visually stunning, the film plunges us into the torments of a young woman haunted by guilt following an attack that went wrong.”
• Into the Mortal World by Zhong Ding (China).
“This is yet another demonstration of the exceptional expertise of Chinese studios. Into the Mortal World is intended for all audiences, a spectacular, funny film, full of action and emotion.”
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain by Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, based on
The Character of Rain, by Amélie Nothomb – WIP 2023 (France).
“For their first feature film, Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han adapted Amélie Nothomb’s novel with finesse and sensitivity. A dazzling offering, brought to life by both the magical script and Mari Fukuhara’s music, the film will appeal to audiences of all ages.”
• Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake by Irene Iborra, based on the work by Maite Carranza
La vie est un film – WIP 2024 (Belgium, Chile, Spain, France). Release date 21st January
2026 – KMBO
“One of the great surprises of the selection! This is the only stop-motion feature film in the Official competition, Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake intelligently and skilfully addresses children tackling an essential social reality without pettiness or sentimentality.”
• The Last Blossom by Baku Kinoshita – WIP 2024 (Japan).
” The Last Blossom is set in the yakuza underworld and evokes the atmosphere of some of Takeshi Kitano’s films (Hana-bi, Sonatine). An opportunity to discover a truly unique director, Baku Kinoshita.”
In the Contrechamp competition:
• Balentes by Giovanni Columbu (Italy).
“A delightful discovery, this unique film follows two children in the 1940s Sardinian countryside. A moving and gripping experience due to its interesting subject matter and experimental form.”
• Endless Cookie by Seth Scriver and Pete Scriver (Canada).
“Seth Scriver brought us Asphalt Watches in competition in 2014, now he’s back this year withEndless Cookie, co-directed with his half-brother Pete Scriver. In a bursting, humorous style, it parallels the differences between the experience of the two brothers, one white and the other Native.”
• Jinsei by Ryuya Suzuki (Japan).
“Ryuya Suzuki’s first feature film reminds us of the minimalist visual aesthetics of On-Gaku: Our Sound by Kenji Iwaisawa. Jinsei is an uncompromising social satire that examines identity and the meaning of life. Through a videotape, the viewer becomes witness to a man’s life who has no history and is in search of an identity.”
• Lesbian Space Princess by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese (Australia).
“This wacky comedy comes to us from Australia, where the title already says it all. Directed by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese, Lesbian Space Princess is both delightful and surprising.”
• Memory Hotel by Heinrich Sabl (Germany, France).
“In his highly stylized debut feature, German Director Heinrich Sabl transports us to 1945, to a strange hotel where little Sophie encounters horrors, loses her memory and finds it again, while history’s tragedy is played out all around her.”
• Nimuendajú by Tania Anaya (Brazil, Peru).
“Out of Brazil comes this astonishing Curt Unckel biopic, the famous German ethnologist and writer christened Nimuendajú by the Guarani people in 1906. Director Tanya Anaya succeeds in capturing this man’s deep commitment as he witnessed first-hand the persecution suffered by the indigenous people.”
• Olivia & the Clouds by Tomás Pichardo Espaillat (Dominican Republic).
“Tomás Pichardo Espaillat’s fourth selection for Annecy is the first animated feature to come out of the Dominican Republic, an amazing journey between four characters and even more animation techniques.”
• Space Cadet by Eric San, aka Kid Koala, adapts his own graphic novel (Canada).
“For his first feature film, musician Eric San (Kid Koala) adapts his own graphic novel, published in 2011. It features Celeste, the orphaned daughter of a famous astronaut, raised by a robot guardian and herself destined for space exploration. A film for all the family that tackles the subject of memory.”
• Tales from the Magic Garden by David Sukup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar, Jean-Claude
Rozec (Czech Republic, France, Slovakia, Slovenia). Release spring 2026 – GEBEKA Films
“Four directors from four countries join forces to create a bundle of tales spotlighting the imagination. We’re almost surprised to find so much cohesion in this children’s film, whose very genesis proves that across different origins and cultures, collaboration and understanding are possible.”
• The Great History of Western Philosophy by Aria Covamonas (Mexico).
“Aria Covamonas, an unclassifiable filmmaker, openly uses several great historical figures to deliver a delirious satire using collage with surrealist overtones.”
• The Square by Bo-Sol Kim (South Korea).
“This is perhaps the most unexpected film of the selection. The forbidden love story between a Swedish diplomat and a young North Korean woman, under the watchful eye of his interpreter and, no doubt, the secret services.”
We will reporting live from Annecy later this year.
