Annecy International Animation Film Festival Sets Lineup For Online Edition – Update

Nancy Tartaglione
·5 min read

Click here to read the full article.

UPDATED with lineup: The annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled its 20-film competition lineup for its 2020 online edition, after its originally scheduled fest June 15-20 was canceled given the current coronavirus pandemic. It now is running June 15-30.

The event takes place each summer in the southeast of France and this year would have been Annecy’s 60th anniversary. Those celebrations will now be held next year. The fest also operates a bustling market whose details will also be elaborated upon next week.

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Not all films in the lineup — which also includes seven projects in the VR Works competition — will be able to be streamed to fest audiences, organizers said Monday. “The financing conditions and session rights according to specific territories or markets prohibit certain films having unrestricted access,” festival management noted today. “Therefore, in the event that certain films cannot be offered to all festivalgoers we have requested the producers provide a minimum 10-minute extract or to produce a short documentary presentation. The jury members will of course have access to the films in their entirety.”

Here’s the lineup unveiled today:

L’officielle (Official Competition)

The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks
Andrey Khrzhanovsky (Russia)

Kill It and Leave this Town
Mariusz Willczynski (Poland)

Little Vampire
Joann Sfar (France)

Jungle Beat: The Movie
Brent Dawes (Mauritius)

Lupin III The First
Takashi Yamazaki (Japan)

7 Days War
Yuta Murano (Japan)

Ginger’s Tale
Konstantin Scherkin (Russia)

Bigfoot Family
Ben Stassen, Jérémie Degruson (Belgium, France)

Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary
Rémi Chayé (France, Denmark)

Nahuel and the Magic Book
German Acuña (Chile)

Contrechamp

On Gaku: Our Sound!
Kenji Iwaisawa (Japan)

The Old Man – The Movie
Mikk Mägi, Oskar Lehemaa (Estonia)

Lava
Ayar Blasco (Argentina)
Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus
Dalibor Baric (Croatia)

Beauty Water
Kyung-hun Cho (South Korea)

My Favorite War
Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen (Latvia, Norway)

The Shaman Sorceress
Jae-huun Ahn (South Korea)

The Legend of Hei
Ping Zhang (China)

True North
Eiji Han Shimizu (Japan, Indonesia)

The Knight and the Princess
Bashir El Deek, Ibrahim Mousa (Saudi Arabia, Egypt)

VR Works – Competition

Ajax All Powerful
Directed by: Ethan SHAFTEL
Country: USA

Battlescar – Punk Was Invented by Girls
Directed by: Martin ALLAIS, Nicolas CASAVECCHIA
Country: USA, France

Great Hoax: The Moon Landing
Directed by: John HSU, Marco LOCOCO
Country: Taiwan, Argentina

Minimum Mass
Directed by: Raqi SYED, Areito ECHEVARRIA
Country: France, New Zealand

Odyssey 1.4.9
Directed by: François VAUTIER
Country: France

Saturnism
Directed by: Mihai GRECU
Country: France, Romania

The Orchid and the Bee
Directed by: Frances Adair MCKENZIE
Country: Canada

Organizers said when the event was canceled on April 7 that “rationale and the international situation compel us to act with lucidity and responsibility. To show our respect and our deep gratitude to the health care providers, as well as all those who choose solidarity and the public interest. Annecy is a party, a ‘family gathering.’ We cannot bring ourselves to celebrate animation and our 60th anniversary when some amongst you would not be able to attend.” (See full release below.)

A planned tribute to African animation as well as the 60th anniversary festivities will be moved to 2021, when the festival and market are due to take place from June 14-19.

Here’s the full memo from Annecy in April:

It is with tremendous disappointment that we are resigned to cancelling the Annecy 2020 edition.

Over the past few weeks, driven by our passion and our enthusiasm, despite the confinement constraints we were nevertheless hoping to maintain the exceptional edition that we had in store for you. We were so looking forward to greeting you as we do every year in June, in Annecy, the animation film capital of the world.

But today, the rationale and the international situation compel us to act with lucidity and responsibility. To show our respect and our deep gratitude to the health care providers, as well as all those who choose solidarity and the public interest.

Annecy is a party, a “family gathering”. We cannot bring ourselves to celebrate animation and our 60th anniversary when some amongst you would not be able to attend.

We took the decision not to move the Festival to a later date. The necessary facilities and the regular events’ calendar, as well as scheduled postponements of other events, do not provide us with a reasonable option.

For several weeks, our founding members, partners, suppliers, professionals and creators have been sending us their full support, and for this we are immensely grateful. These encouragements motivate us to offering an Annecy 2020 online version that would give access to exclusive works and original content, despite the current circumstances.

The Official Selection will be announced on 15th April; we will then disclose an offer that will be elaborate and up to the expectations of our festivalgoers and loyal Mifa professionals.

The team is mobilised on this project, so see you in the forthcoming days, and from 14th to 19th June 2021 to finally celebrate, as it should be, the Festival’s 60th anniversary, and African animation, in Annecy.

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