“We find the atmosphere at the festival again. We live again.” Annecy is proudly portrayed as “the first major international cultural event to welcome the public” (without a health pass) in postpartum France.
From 14 to 19 June, the world animated film capital will present more than 200 short and feature films on site, “an exceptional vintage” and “the best of African animation” in the form of a tribute. Interview with Mickaël Marin, Director of the Festival, Film Market and Cité de l’image en mouvement in Annecy (Citia).
RFI: Is it a satisfaction to you that the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, after closing, is the first major international cultural event to welcome spectators in theaters??
Mickaël Marin: For us, the year was very complicated. We had to work with an edition that was even more difficult to organize than last year, from a technical point of view, in terms of the content offered online and in the market, without knowing if we could do it on the spot. We had to hold on, hold on, until we announced the President of the Republic.
The satisfaction for us is today to see a city where there are panels with posters, assembled infrastructures. We feel that we are finding the atmosphere at the festival again. We are alive again. It is the most important.
Are filmmakers and professionals from abroad also coming to Annecy??
Some do. Those who could … We will have a much smaller international presence than in a normal year. I must remember that in 92, the largest year in terms of attendance, 92 countries were present in Annecy. This year the event will be much more French-French and European. Nevertheless, some extra-Europeans will join us. The problem for us, and I think, for other international festivals, is that the travel conditions today are so complicated, with conditions changing very regularly, with prices, especially for tickets. on a day …
It is very difficult for participants from abroad to come. So, some will be there, others will be online with us, because it’s still too complicated to get to Annecy. If we had had more or less normal transport conditions and normal border crossings, we would have had two and a half times the number of accredited people we will have in place. The animated planet wanted to come to Annecy.
The 2021 festival will take place both on site and online. What lessons have you learned from? 2020 edition, an edition unlike any other, for the first completely digital?
We have kept some units that will be stored. For example, we have a project competition with hundreds of contributions. After that, about thirty projects are selected and presented during the film market. Last year, because we could not do it physically, we asked the team to make a video for the presentation of the project. We have done a lot of work to support the project managers, the creators, so that they can make the best video presentation. These materials will be useful to Annecy, but film crews can keep it later to present it at other festivals. It’s a device we did not have before and which we have kept … The whole difficulty for us is: what do we make available online? The biggest challenge was to find this balance between “online” and “in place”, to have a complementarity.
You will arrange more than 200 face-to-face screenings this year. In the official selection, what will be the highlight of this 2021 edition??
We will have a record number of feature films: twelve. This has never happened since the Annecy Festival was created in 1960. There are not twelve feature films, because many films have been produced or because there were “layers” that had to be shown. No, our artistic delegate chose these films, because we are fortunate to have an exceptional quality of feature films.
Very beautiful previews await the public: we will screen Luca, from Pixar. There will be Even Mice Go to Heaven by Denisa Grimmova and Jan Bubenicek, produced by the Czech Republic and France, it is a fantastic animated film for the family. It’s Spirit from DreamWorksAnimation Studios. We will also have ongoing work, long-awaited films, in production. Annecy is really the mirror for the current production. And a trend is confirmed, topics for adults, reflection of the current world, with topics dealing with refugee issues, war, identity … That is, there will always be a cinema for the family and children, but more and more a cinema for adults.
During 60 years of existence, the Annecy International Animation Festival has programmed 47 African films in the various official selections. This year you have planned to pay tribute to an African animation. Walt Disney and Kugali Animation Studios will present Iwájú, their animated series as acclaimed as it is atypical of an afro-futuristic universe. What form are the filmmakers and creators of African animation today??
We are very proud to be able to rent this tribute, which we should have paid for in 2020, as we were marked as part of the Africa 2020 season. We have supported project managers in Africa for more than ten years. To help them better organize themselves, to move forward, to be able to succeed in Annecy and be recognized by the world community. So, after ten years of working with different countries in Africa, creators and different entities, this season of the French Institute fell perfectly. We said to ourselves: this could be an opportunity to provide additional visibility. Thereafter, this tribute will be translated both through screenings on the website, in the form of retrospectives or contemporary animations and online. We will show what is the best of African animation for us.
What a development you see?
There is a huge variety of techniques, subjects. It goes very fast. We can see it clearly. The platforms were also right. They are interested in it. Netflix and Disney have produced series with African talents. For us, there will be a before and an after, after this tribute. We should have had a nice African delegation. The talents wanted to move in droves. Unfortunately, the travel conditions mean that we will have a little talent, but not as much. But this is just a postponement. Today we have created very strong links with African animation and Annecy will be for this profession and for animation the best possible sounding board in the future for recognition and then for creating new projects, between Africans or between African creators and the rest of the world. I’m convinced of that.
Among the strengths there are Lady Buckit & the Motley Mopsters, a Nigerian feature film by Adetayo (2020).Will there be world premieres for African animation in Annecy?
Our wish was not to show previews, but to already show what is being done today. We will also have conferences on the state of the animation industry in Africa. This is really what we were trying to do.
You mentioned the platforms. Cannes Film Festival continues to refuse Netflix movies or other competing platforms. What does Annecy Festival look like in the matter?
In recent years, we have had a very strong presence on platforms, especially Netflix and Amazon. And we have a long history with Disney. What we show [des plateformes] in Annecy does not compete, at least for feature films. On the other hand, we show many previews. These are session events on the big screen. Movies do not compete officially, but it is not necessarily something that we are looking for or that platforms are looking for. We are looking for another way to show the films and to market the talents that make these films and that we naturally know. So we show these movies, but in a different way.
Access to the Annecy Festival and the International Animated Film Market (Mifa) is not conditional on the presentation of a health pass. The size of the festival does not require it, as it does not accommodate more than 800 people at a time in the film rooms or 1000 people in the film market. “Annecy Festival introduces all necessary sanitary measures to preserve it, in consultation with authorities and local authorities.”
Annecy 2021: the 12 films in official competition
-Lion Dance Boy by S. HAMILTON (China)
– My mother is a gorilla, so what? By Linda HAMBÄCK (Sweden / Norway / Denmark)
-Petit Moutard by Marcus ROSENMÜLLER, Santiago LOPEZ JOVER (Austria / Germany)
-Hayop Ka! The Nimfa Dimaano Story by Avid LIONGOREN (Philippines)
-Poupelle of Chimney Town by HIROTA Yusuke (Japan)
-Jiang Ziya: The Legend of Deification by LI Wei, CHENG Teng (China)
-Deer King by ANDO Masashi, MIYAJI Masayuki (Japan)
-Fleede Jonas POHER RASMUSSEN (Denmark / France / Norway / Sweden)
-Lamya’s Poem by Alex KRONEMER (Canada / USA)
-Josée, the tiger and the fish from TAMURA Kotaro (Japan)
-My Afghan family by Michaela PAVLATOVA (Czech Republic / France / Slovakia)
Crossroads of Florence Miailhe (Germany / France / Czech Republic)
►Annecy International Animated Film Festival, from 14 to 19 June 2021.
