Annecy, world capital of animation
With 223 films in official selection and the most important animation market in the world, the Annecy Film Festival opens today with Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Spanish feature Chico & Rita [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando
film profile], which is screening in a competition of nine titles.
The 2011 Golden Crystal will be awarded by a jury comprising producers Marc de Pontavice and Yoshihiro Shimizu, and musician-writer-director Mathias Malzieu. Highlights among the other European contenders for the award are The Rabbi’s Cat [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French duo Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux, The Great Bear [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Denmark’s Esben Toft Jacobsen and two other French productions: Santa’s Apprentice [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Luc Vinciguerra and A Cat In Paris [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol.
Several features will also screen in avant-premiere out of competition, including Brit director Phil Mulloy’s Goodbye Mister Christie, Spanish helmer Fernando Cortizo’s The Apostle, Antoine Charreyron’s French/Belgian/Luxembourg co-production The Prodigies and Eric Khoo’s Tatsumi.
Running until June 11, the festival will also host six conferences (notably on making the most of the production chain, the strategy used by studios, and the emergence of digital distribution platforms); and a zoom on US animation. It will also show previously unseen images in the Work in Progress section which will focus, among others, on Ernest & Célestine (with participants Didier Brunner, Daniel Pennac and Benjamin Renner), Jean-Christophe Dessaint’s Le Jour des Corneilles (“The Day of Crows”), Laurent Boileau and Jung’s Approved for Adoption, and Malzieu’s The Mechanics of the Heart.
Nearly 2,200 professionals from over 70 countries are expected to attend the International Animated Film Market (MIFA – June 8-10), confirming Annecy’s leading position in a sector where France ranks as the third largest world producer of animated films after the United States and Japan.
(Translated from French)
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