Annecy, the world’s leading animation film festival, unveiled its official program on Wednesday, with a line-up that includes features from some 20 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas and a range of styles, from the big-budget 3D computer animated feature Into the Mortal World from Chinese director Zhong Ding; to the hand-drawn title Balentes by Italian filmmaker Giovanni Columbu, and the digital cut out animation of Mexican filmmaker Aria Covamonas: The Great History of Western Philosophy.
Covamonas’ debut premiered at the Rotterdam festival, and Annecy’s 2025 lineup features a best-of selection of recent fests, including Berlinale highlights Lesbian Space Princess and Tales from the Magic Garden, and several features premiering in Cannes next month, including The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol from The Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet; Dandelion’s Odyssey from Japanese director Momoko Seto; and Death Does Not Exist from Canadian filmmaker Felix Dufour-Laperrière.
Among the Annecy world premieres are Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, a coming-of-age stop-motion feature from Spanish director Irene Iborra; Zaven Najjar’s Allah Is Not Obliged, about a child soldier during the Liberian civil war; and Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, from directors Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, about a Belgian girl growing up in Japan.
Highlights from the adult animation midnight screening program include Kenichiro Akimoto’s All You Need Is Kill, an anime adaptation of the Hiroshi Sakurazaka sci-fi novel adapted as the 2014 Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt feature Edge of Tomorrow, Kenji Nakamura and Kiyotaka Suzuki’s Mononoke The Movie: Chapter II – The Ashes of Rage, the second feature in a feature trilogy based on the Toei Animation series Mononke, and Heart of Darkness, an animated adaptation of the Joseph Conrad’s classic by director Rogerio Nunes set in a near-future Rio de Janeiro.
Annecy is coming off a phenomenal 2024, which saw two of its prize winners, Gints Zilbalodis’ Latvian feature Flow, and Adam Elliot’s Aussie claymation drama Memoir of a Snail both score Oscar nominations, with Flow winning the Academy Award for best animated feature.
Outside this year’s official selection, Annecy will feature first-looks, sneak peaks and highlights from all of the major U.S. studios, with Sony Pictures Animation giving a first look at Tyree Dillihay’s basketball-themed Goat; Dreamworks showcasing Pierre Perifel’s Bad Guys 2; Paramount Animation presenting new franchise titles The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants and Aang: The Last Airbender; and Netflix giving a first look at its upcoming Stranger Things animation series, as well as feature In Your Dreams from Alex Woo and Long Story Short, the new series from Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, who will attend the festival and screen an episode of the show.
Disney for the first time will bring films and series from all of its animation divisions, giving Annecy attendees a sneak peak at Disney Animation’s Zootopia 2, Pixar‘s Elio, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, Marvel Animation’s Eyes of Wakanda, and Disney Television Animation’s Dragon Striker, and screening early footage from Pixar’s upcoming 2026 titles Hoppers and Toy Story 5. Pixar’s chief creative officer, Pete Docter, will attend Annecy to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Toy Story and to be inducted into Annecy’s Walk of Fame.
Warner Bros. Animation will take part in a 25th anniversary celebration of Cartoon Network Studios and WB’s Adult Swim will present a new season of the series Smiling Friends.
Among the screening events this year, Andy Serkis will present his new animated adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky will present his Netflix feature comedy Fixed. French screening highlights include Falcon Express from directors Jean-Christian Tassy and Benoît Daffis, and Antoine Lanciaux’s The Songbird’s Secret.
This year’s Work in Progress showcase – always one of the most popular sidebars at any edition of the fest – will feature early looks at such features as Carmen from Chicken for Linda! director Sébastien Laudenbach; Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja’s The Cat in the Hat adaptation for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Olivier Clert and Jean-Christophe Dessaint’s Lucy Lost from French studio Xilam. On the series side, Annecy’s works in progress will feature Netflix’s upcoming Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch; Adult Swim’s Women Wearing Shoulder Pads and Get Jiro!, and the French series ******* from director Manon Tacconi.
A preview of writer/director Dean DeBlois’ upcoming live action reimaging of “How to Train Your Dragon” from Universal has been added to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival lineup.
Dreamworks Animation’s 2010 original, based on Cressida Cowell’s book series, was written and directed by DeBlois and Chris Sandlers, and DeBlois wrote and helmed the following two movies to complete the trilogy. The new film will screen at Annecy on June 11, in advance of its June 13 U.S. release.
A Paramount & Nickelodeon Animation presentation has also been added to the festival schedule, featuring upcoming “Smurfs,” directed by Chris Miller (“Puss in Boots”) and “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” helmed by Derek Drymon. A pair of shorts, “SpongeBob: Order Up,” directed by Sean Charmatz and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 – Lost in New Jersey,” directed by Kent Seki, will also highlight the June 10 session.
A first look at Paul McCartney’s 3D animated film “High in the Cloud” helmed by Toby Genkel is also joining the lineup. It’s recently-announced all star cast includes Celine Dion, Himesh Patel, Hannah Waddingham, Idris Elba, Lionel Richie, Ringo Starr, Jimmy Fallon, Clémence Poésy, Pom Klementieff and Alain Chabat. Gaumont is producing and repping internationally, and Gaumont’s president of global animation and family Terry Kalagian will be at Annecy for the presentation, alongside project supervisor Christian De Vita.
Lastly, “Predator: Killer of Killers” an original adventure set in the Predators universe, written by Dan Trachtenberg and co-directed by Josh Wassung, has joined the Annecy program. The movie debuts June 6 Hulu.
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival kicks-off this weekend with a masterclass by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, who will also receive a career award alongside The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and UK animation director Joanna Quinn at the opening ceremony.
It marks The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Gondry’s first trip to the lakeside event, billed as the biggest animation festival in the world, although his work Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?:An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky played at the festival in 2014, winning the best French film prize.
“Michel is exactly like Terry Gilliam,” says festival’s artistic director Marcel Jean, referring to Annecy’s 2024 guest of honor. “He comes from the world of animation. That’s where he started. We’ve wanted to invite him for a long time and the planets have aligned.”
Jean notes that Gondry’s visit also coincides with a focus this year on the use of animation in music videos, a domain in which the director is also well-known for his collaborations with the likes Of Björk, The White Stripes and Daft Punk.
In a break with tradition, Jean has opted to world premiere five short films at the open ceremony rather than showcase a single feature film. Recent openers have included The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024), Sirocco and the Kingdom of Air Streams (2023) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022).
“We wanted to reaffirm the place of the short film at Annecy,” explains Jean. “With the first films, we don’t stipulate that they are French premieres, but this year we received an enormous amount of world premieres, so we decided to open with a program of shorts, which are very different and very strong.”
They range from 9 Million Colours by emerging Czech director Bára Anna Stejskalová, who won praise for her short film Love Is Just A Death Away, to Shinya Ohira’s Star Wars: Visions – “Black“, the first Japanese work in the Visions collection, produced by Lucasfilm for Disney+.
The line-up also features The Girl Who Cried Pearls, the latest stop-motion work from Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, the Canadian directorial duo working under the banner of Clyde Henry Productions, who were Oscar nominated for short film Madam Tutli-Putli.
Bulgarian Oscar-nominated director Theodore Ushev, who won Annecy’s best short award in 2020, also returns with La Vie avec un idiot about a man forced to live with an idiot as a state sanctioned punishment.
The opening night mix of filmmakers forging their way in the indie space and globally known animation stars such as Matt Groening and IPs such as Star Wars encapsulates the essence of Annecy, which is one of the few film festivals in the world to truly showcase indie and studio fare with equal amounts of respect and attention.
This mix and the festival’s efforts to cater to animation professionals across all formats and styles has won it fans worldwide.
In 2024, there 17,400 accredited attendees, including 6,500 participants at its MIFA market, and 4,120 students, who give the festival its youthful atmosphere.
At the heart of the festival program is the 21-title Main Competition, with contenders this year ranging from established names such as Sylvain Chomet with A Magnificent Life and Félix Dufour-Laperrière with Death Does Not Exist, to newcomers such as Ugo Bienvenu with Arco, Momoko Seto with Dandelion’s Odyssey.
Jean acknowledges that many of the films have French connections this year but suggests this is more a reflection of the role France plays in financing independent feature films.
“I think the dynamism of French film finance and cultural diplomacy makes it look like there are a lot of French entries but the directors and stories this year are from across the world,” he says.
Outside of the competition programs, the big draw for attendees is the program of works-in-progress, makings of and sneak peaks.
As ever, all the Hollywood studios will be out in force.
Disney kicks off the Making of Sessions on Monday (June 9) with a presentation of new action-adventure series Eyes Of Wakanda, which launches on Disney+ on August 6, with director and executive producer Todd Harris leading the presentation.
“It’s a big year for Disney at Annecy,” comments Jean, noting all of its divisions – from Walt Disney Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Animation, Lucasfilm, Disney Television Animation to 20th Television Animation – will be at the festival this year.
Further highlights of the Disney program include the Pixar Animation Studios showcase on Friday, featuring footage from Elio and first images from Hoppers and Toy Story 5, teased by the studio’s CCO and Annecy regular Pete Docter.
“Netflix and Warner will also be out in force,“ adds Jean, noting the presence of the latter’s Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe.
Warner Brother Animation will hold special conversation event celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cartoon Network Studios’ featuring creators such as Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls), Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), J.G. Quintel (Regular Show), Adam Muto (Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake).
“In recent years, TV series have brought about a huge amount of innovation.,” says Jean.
He points to the example of Ward’s series Adventure Time, about the adventures of a boy called Finn and his adoptive brother Jake, a dog with shape shifting powers.
“There are lots of independent features and shorts that were influenced by Pendleton Ward and Adventure Time, which in turn also opened the way for Rebecca Sugar to make Steven Universe, which also opened up new subject matter. Channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have been extremely important,” says Jean.
“Someone like Genndy Tartakovsky who went on to make features and comes from these channels, is a key figure… there’s also Adult Swim which last year presented the first episode of Common Side Effects. That series for me, is a major milestone in the history of animated series, which has gained in importance since the election of Donald Trump,” he adds of the show about two high school students who take on big pharma and corrupt government.
Warner Bros. Animation will also be running a work-in—progress session for Get Jiro based on the best-selling graphic novels set not-too-distant future Los Angeles where master chefs rule the town, and making of presentation for Bat-Fam.
In other studio highlights, Netflix will be running its traditional Next on Netflix Animation event, with a focus on the upcoming From Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 animated series and feature film In Your Dreams, which it is positioning for an awards season push.
Sony Pictures Animation will also be in town to unveil animated sports-themed production GOAT from Tyree Dillihay and co-director Adam Rosette; DreamWorks Animation will present a first look at Bad Guys 2 directed by Pierre Perifel and co-directed by Juan Pablo Sans, and Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon will showcase Smurfs and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.
When people ask me what my favorite film festival is, I know what they expect to hear: something upscale and exclusive, like Venice or Cannes, with their red carpet premieres and interminable standing ovations, where the winning filmmaker goes home with a golden something-or-other, be it a lion, a bear or the Palme d’Or.
What they don’t expect to hear is that the top stop on my travel calendar is, in fact, Annecy, which isn’t a traditional film festival at all, but more of a cross between Comic-Con and Cannes, dedicated entirely to animation.
Personally, I believe that animation is the purest form of cinema there is. Unlike the vast majority of filmmaking, where you point a camera at something that exists — what we think of as “live action” — with animation, you start with a blank page (or screen), and everything that appears on it must be drawn, sculpted or invented whole cloth. From “Snow White” to stop-motion, everything is extrapolated directly from the imagination, as artists use a mind-boggling number of ways to cheat the impression that their creations are alive.
It’s magic. And Annecy is the festival that honors that wizardry best, dedicating a week to every kind of animation you can imagine — long and short, whether made for the big screen or small. It doesn’t matter if it’s primitively rendered by hand or cutting-edge computer-assisted fare, all are welcome, with so many surprising variations in between (from Michel Ocelot’s paper cutout style to the living painting approach of “Loving Vincent”).
A few decades ago, animation might have seemed like a niche sliver of the overall film industry, perhaps even a dying medium. The golden age of Disney was behind us, and animation divisions at DreamWorks and Warner Bros. were struggling. But ever since Pixar revolutionized the form, demonstrating the “to infinity and beyond” potential of computer animation with “Toy Story” 30 years ago, Hollywood studios have embraced toons in a big way.
Last year, four of the six top-grossing films were animated — “Inside Out 2” and “Moana 2” made more than a billion dollars apiece, while “Despicable Me 4” and “Mufasa: The Lion King” were close behind — and just this spring, CG Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” set an all-time box office record, earning just shy of $1.9 billion. As Porky Pig might say, that’s buh-buh-billion with a B.
Small wonder then that Annecy draws an even bigger American studio presence than Cannes each year. Granted, it was a big deal when Jeffrey Katzenberg brought “Shrek” to Cannes, and Pixar launched “Elemental” and “Up” on the Croisette — all signs that animation is not unwelcome at the prestigious French film festival. But a few weeks later in Annecy, you’ll find more Academy members in attendance, plus Disney/Pixar, Warner, Universal (which owns both Illumination and DreamWorks), Paramount/Nickelodeon and Netflix not only presenting new work, but also recruiting talent from screenings and networking events at the International Animation Film Market (or MIFA).
2D animated sequences produced by Warner Bros. Animation and animated by Snipple (Looney Tunes Cartoons/The Day The Earth Blew Up)
CG animated sequences produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe (The Amazing World of Gumball)
For the next seven days, the sleepy Alpine town of Annecy will be transformed into the global hub of the worldwide animation industry.
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 8-14), started as a bi-annual event for animation superfans, has become a must-attend for the biggest names in the industry — the animation divisions of Netflix, Disney/Pixar, Warner Bros., DreamWorks, Sony and Paramount will all be represented — alongside the cutting edge of the international indie industry. Two of last year’s Annecy winners — Gints Zilbalodis’ Latvian feature Flow, and Adam Elliot’s Australian claymation drama Memoir of a Snail — were 2025 Oscar nominees, with Flow becoming the first independent film to win the Academy Award for best animated feature.
“Everything is getting bigger and bigger, more and more, every year,” Marcel Jean, Annecy artistic director tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Every year, the festival is more important, the Annecy animation market, Mifa is more important. We’ve become the core of the calendar of animation activity worldwide.”
Annecy attendees will get a first look at this year’s biggest upcoming animated features and series, including Disney Animation’s Zootopia 2 and Pixar‘s Elio; Netflix’s Fixed and its Stranger Things animation series; Dreamworks’ Bad Guys 2 and Sony Pictures Animation’s basketball-themed Goat. Warner Bros. Animation will show off the best of its TV slate in a 25th anniversary celebration of Cartoon Network Studios and a special presentation for WB’s Adult Swim. The former will include a panel of Cartoon Network luminaries: Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls), Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), J.G. Quintel (Regular Show), Adam Muto (Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake); the latter highlights of Adult Swim’s upcoming slate, including the new season of hit series Smiling Friends, announced at Annecy last year.
Simpsons creator Matt Groening will take the stage at Annecy, alongside executive producer and showrunner Matt Selman and producer David Silverman for a session on the show’s groundbreaking legacy, with Groening also receiving an Honorary Cristal lifetime achievement award from the festival for his “exceptional contribution to animation.”
On the indie side, Andy Serkis will present his new animated adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, featuring the voice talents of Seth Rogen, Woody Harrelson and Kieran Culkin, which Goodfellas is selling internationally. French auteur Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), a first-time Annecy attendee, will receive a Honorary Cristal, as will British animator Joanna Quinn (Girls’ Night Out, Famous Fred).
“We love big studio productions, and we love small experimental films. If it’s great animation and we love it, we’ll showcase it at the festival or the market,” says Annecy Festival CEO Mickaël Marin. “Year after year, we can see, at Annecy, the evolution of the animation industry worldwide, with new countries, new talents emerging.”
The festival’s competition lineup, typical for Annecy, is truly global, from Zhong Ding’s big-budget Chinese feature Into the Mortal World to Sylvain Chomet’s A Magnificent Life — an animated biopic of pioneering French filmmaker Marcel Pagnol — to Yasuhiro Aoki’s Japanese anime ChaO and Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han’s Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, both of which were snatched up by Gkids for North America just ahead of the festival.
“We see it as our responsibility to expose the whole state of the world of animation,” says Jean, “to look at what’s happening in the animation world, and to try a take a Polaroid of that, both the biggest, most spectacular works but also the most unique, and the films that reflect the trends, the preoccupations and the topics that are most important for animation creators.”
“If we only selected the very biggest films, we’d always have the same countries represented,” notes Mifa head Véronique Encrenaz. “But at the festival and the market, we act as a laboratory, working with talents from countries all around the world to develop their talents and their industries. And, year by year, they grow. So this year, we have emerging African countries at Mifa. For the first time, we have a Nigerian feature [Shofela Coker’s Crocodile Dance] in the industry section Mifa Pitches, we have emerging countries like Vietnam and ones from South America, from Asia, that are investing more and more in animation.”
The festival’s 40th edition will also pay tribute to Hungarian animation, highlighting the country’s rich animated history, with screenings of classics including Cristal winners Heroic Times (1982) by József Gémes, and The District! (2005) from Áron Gauder.
This year’s Work in Progress showcase – always one of the most popular sidebars at any edition of the fest – will feature early looks at such features as Carmen from Chicken for Linda! director Sébastien Laudenbach; Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja’s The Cat in the Hat adaptation for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation (featuring Bill Hader) and Olivier Clert and Jean-Christophe Dessaint’s Lucy Lost from French studio Xilam. On the series side, Annecy’s works in progress will feature Netflix’s upcoming Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch; Adult Swim’s Women Wearing Shoulder Pads and Get Jiro!, and the French series *****es from director Manon Tacconi.
“Eyes of Wakanda,” an animated spin-off from the “Black Panther” franchise, premiered its first episode at a panel at the Annecy Animation Festival.
Director Todd Harris introduced the episode, titled “Into the Lion’s Den,”before a Q&A session on the morning of June 9. Harris, previously a story artist for Marvel on “Black Panther” and its sequel “Wakanda Forever,” said the show followed an “anthology adjacent” format.
The episode, the first of four in the series, is set in 1260 B.C., and turns on a Wakandan secret agent, a disgraced former Dora Milaje named Noni (played by Winnie Harlow), as she pursues a man by the moniker of ‘Lion’ (Cress Williams).
Lion has defected from the Wakandan guard in order to run a band of pirates, and has stolen technology from Wakanda in order to found his own kingdom. Noni finds him in Crete, where Lion’s crew of pirates, assembled from fighters from around the world, are currently pillaging and enslaving a town.
The show is animated in a graphic 3D style by Axis Animation studio, full of exaggerated character designs and 2D visual effects. The opening sequence, as Harris excitedly highlighted, is hand-drawn, by artists at AKA Studio. “There was a version of the show which had 2D montages,” Harris explains. But due to time constraints, this was kept to the opening, intended to preserve that spirit. It’s also a nod to the show’s visual roots, as Harris points out that charcoal drawings are the first stage of a painting.
The design, as Harris puts it, is meant to push cultural specifics and foreground the range of cultures the Wakandans have interacted with over time, while preserving the sci-fi look established in the film. He also primarily attributes the “painterly” look to illustrators and painters like Dean Cornwell as well as Ernie Barnes, the latter being an inspiration for the character’s exaggerated proportions.
Lol, Black is one of the episodes of The Ninth Jedi.
Please stop scolding people for getting the facts right.
The Ninth Jedi series is A SPINOFF SERIES from Visions based on the short from Season 1 directed by Kenji Kamiyama (War of the Rohirrim). This short is from Star Wars Visions Season 3 and is being directed by Shinya Ohira and animated by David Production. Multiple sources have made this very clear.
Quote:
I arrived at Annecy Festival, and saw the great "Black" short film by Shinya Ohira (Star Wars Visions Season 3).
Key animators: Toshiyuki Inoue, Takeshi Honda, Bahi JD, Weilin Zhang, Vincent Chansard, Kou Yoshinari... (among others).
Art director: Aymeric Kevin.
What a team!
[Show spoiler]The Ninth Jedi series is A SPINOFF SERIES from Visions based on the short from Season 1 directed by Kenji Kamiyama (War of the Rohirrim). This short is from Star Wars Visions Season 3 and is being directed by Shinya Ohira and animated by David Production. Multiple sources have made this very clear.
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