Animated: a word that became banal and yet carries the idea of « give life, life breath, mind » to something dinerte. The animation proceeds as if by magic. If we travel through international festivals every year, however, the Annecy festival remains one of our most appreciated stages, due to aggressive programming and an environment conducive to all encounters, regardless of the status of each other. In Annecy, we exchange independent studios and large houses like Disney, Dreamwork and Sony look at each other and meet at the MIFA beach every night. Animation cinema is a collective work like no other. This year again, Annecy's festival showed an eclectic and lively program. We share our view of the festival with Kevin Giraud, journalist of the Belgian paper media Overprints. The closing ceremony was also rooted in the horror of reality and the message of support was addressed to Iranians at the closing ceremony. We will conclude this post-session with 15 films that marked us in Annecy; the list is accessible at the end of the page.
Logbook
Podcast MaG & Overprints
Window on the Middle East from Annecy: the law of hammer and anvil
It is never enough to say how much festivals are protected bubbles from intellectual misery, this scourge that poisons public debate, today locked by the extreme right and the rise of fascism all over the world. The flagrante « Two double standards » of an international order with agony sign the bankruptcy of the Westblind to the genocide in Gaza, of which he is collectively complicit.
With his movie The Area of Interest (read our critical and our balance sheet of the year on the urgency of putting the terms), Jonathan Glazer reminded us that the term become taboo should never be « a calcified moment of history ». With a speech of support to the broken Persian and Arab populations, the closing ceremony was also caught up in the new Middle East fire following Israel's flash attack on its historical enemy, Iran. His military deterrent capabilities have been seriously undermined, as the hundreds of civilian deaths inflicted by the IDF to eliminate the Revolutionary Guards one by one, in apparent disregard of the basic rules of a conspicuous international law. Or how to put out a fire with napalm. A sadly predictable escalation announced by the innumerable official provocations of the State occupying the Palestinian territories from Nakba: the image of Ambassador of Israel passing the UN Charter to the shredder After a symbolic vote on the accession of Palestine, a year earlier, the crimes to come that the countries of the North refuse to recognize. So we cling to brave public positions like here in Annecy's dark rooms.
Iranian director Sepideh Farsi (see our Interview), member of the feature film jury, had to leave Annecy hastily, leaving a message of hope addressed to festivalgoers and artists who came to celebrate animated cinema. The whole room rose to applaud the message of a stubborn artist. From Gaza to Iran, the civilian population is being held hostage to the avenging imperialism of leaders who seek only to flee their own responsibilities to strengthen their power. Netanyahu's flight forward since 7 October is the most cynical illustration of this, as the population is now largely acquiesced in the wars waged against all neighbouring countries to believe that surveys To the great dam of the hostages still held by Hamas.
The jury also paid tribute to Parnia Abbasi, an Iranian poet who died under Israeli bombs with his entire family as required by the Israeli protocol already used against Fatma Hassuna and so many other anonymous people. Many Iranians met during the festival did not yet know if they could return to their country. Some filmmakers were going to take a long bus trip from Turkey to join their loved ones before the internet blackout that leaves us in recent days without news. A common denominator of the Iranian voices with whom we exchanged: the dignity with which they were preparing to join theirs, caught in stride between the hammer of the Iranian regime and the anvil of the IDF.
If Art is an act of resistance, the race to « law of the strongest » initiated by tyrants such as Trump, Netanyahu and Putin makes even more essential the need to produce works that oppose the outbreak of nationalism. Fundamentalisms on all sides threaten the already precarious balance of the world born from the ashes of the Second World War. Let us not be afraid to speak; international solidarity is the only possible horizon. There are still spaces of resistance; let us seize them. From the Iranian and Israeli enemy theocracies, from Sepideh Farsi to Nadav lapid, contemporary creation bears witness to his ability to resist univocal discourses. The dead have names; These few lines (as vain as they may be) pay tribute to them. The verses of Parnia Abbasi and his poem Star extinguished sounded in the enclosure of Bonlieu and echoed today; Can they ever help restore belief in international justice. There is no « just war », only the deaths by legions to the benefit of autocrats. War is a gulf from which no victor comes. It is the failure of our common humanity that constitutes a threat existential for the future. How many more voices will die in indifference?
The Star Off
I cried for both of us
For you,
And for me.
You blow my tears,
stars erased,
in the wind of your sky.
In your world,
the light is delivered.
In mine,
It's just shadow theater.
Somewhere,
you and me
We're finishing our story.
The most beautiful poem in the world
shut down in silence.
Somewhere,
You're taking birth.
You scream
the whisper of life.
And me,
in a thousand places,
I'm undoing myself.
I burn myself
become a dead star,
lost smoke
in your sky.
15 films to see at the Annecy Festival
Into the Mortal World
China| Release date : NC | Implementation : Zhong Ding | Official competition
A young pretender among the gods, Jing Feng, descends into the mortal world to seek the truth and reveal the plot that excluded his mother from heaven. On his way, he crossed the path of a malevolent mortal girl who sought to make the opposite journey to find her mother. With Into the Mortal World, Chinese animation finds a new candidate of choice to decline the folklore of the Middle Empire in an explosive film. No time dead at the rendezvous; on the contrary, the images scroll at all speed, even to steal those who are not accustomed to the crazy rhythm of Chinese studios. A resolutely funny and touching film where one finds, of course, a specification sticking as close as possible to the folklore of the celestial Empire, but with a remarkable performance. We bow to the ability to surprise the spectator by the power of emotions and the total resolution to realize a drama in all senses of the term. Disney has a problem!
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Girl who store Time
China | Release date : NC | Implementation : Zhou Tienan, Yu Ao | Official competition
Another Chinese film noticed, The Girl who stole Time is not lacking panache. Undoubtedly the most complex of the two films in terms of scenario and staging, this feature film, also presented in competition, tells the story of a modest girl from a modest fishing village. After a shipwreck, Qian Xiao inadvertently finds the « Time dial » who is being hunted relentlessly by a criminal organization worthy of Team Rocket. The girl then teamed up with Seventeen, a stoic handman, ready to do anything to regain the power of the dial. Playing codes, the film does not hesitate to multiply references during an adventure that blooms the films of the 80s between action, romance and humour. Effective, even if perhaps a little confusing in its outcome, The Girl who store Time is a flamboyant and devilishly expressive film. An animation nugget!
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Arco
France | Release date : 22/10/2025| Implementation : Ugo Welcome | Official competition | Interview to come
Two years earlier in Annecy, Jérémie Périn presented Mars Express, a cynical and not very engaging SF film about the future of humanity. This year, the festival opts for a glimmer of hope with Arco, also presented in competition at the Cannes festival. The film by Ugo Bienvenue tells the story of a little child who has fallen from heaven and hastened into the past. Confronting two visions of the future, the first turning to technology in the service of man, the second refocusing on the osmosis with the environment, Ugo Bienvenu signs a work less pessimistic than many contemporary productions. The great collapse is not what one believes and Arco comes to remind us that rainbows appear paradoxically only after the rain. Well written, the characters are interpreted by a panel of actors who give life to the story. A film for young and old that takes away the crystal of the long film with the beard ofAmelia and the metaphysics of the tubes.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
All you need is kill
Japan | Release date : NC | Implementation : Kenichiro Akimoto | Midnight special
Attention, love for video game lovers... At the crossover of the unequal Return and comedy One day without end, All you need is kill takes up the concept of repetition of a single day in a loop. Whatever the weight of death, every day our heroine ends minced with hordes of alien insectoids that would not deny Starship Troopers. Every time this young girl taciturnes, she wakes up in the same place, in bed with the traditional awakening that Phil Connors destroyed in the cult comedy of Harold Ramis. The hic, every time you die, you have to go back from 0 to try to survive in the face of an overpowering enemy. What if we had to resolve to attack the enemy? We feel how much Kenichiro Akimato and his teams grew up with the video game. Who never tried tirelessly to beat a superpowering boss of Sekiro until you pull out the victory in extremis? Metaphor of blind perseverance, All you need is kill declines the concept of loop until exhaustion. It is brutal, striking, funny and particularly successful in terms of artistic direction. The very sharp style of the characters recalls the bd and the virevoltant animation offers very beautiful sequences of action. An original film that sins only by a climax a little too agreed to its original proposal.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥
Another World
Hong Kong | Release date : NC | Implementation : Tommy Kai Chung NG | Midnight special
After death, just before reincarnation, the souls of the deceased pass through the fantastic kingdom of the Other World. Gudo, a passing spirit helps transient souls to reincarnate. Gudo will embark on a perilous mission to help Yuri, a princess whose father was murdered. Another World takes up well-known themes of animes, especially on uncontrolled rabies that turns the host into a plague. Film born in Hong Kong, Another World adopts a penciled graphic style of all beauty and that does not hesitate to show horror. Disturbing at the beginning, the intrigue ends up revealing itself during a thousand-yearly narrative, which carries the inseparable violence of the history of humanity. Adapted from Saijo Naka's manga Sen nen ki, Another World Perhaps suffers from the complexity of its history, the determinants of which are difficult to integrate into the format of the feature film. Even though the film lacks emotion, there is still an intriguing twilight work.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥
Amélie and tube metaphysics
France | Release date : 25/06/2025 | Implementation : Mailys Vallade and Liane-cho han |Official competition
Adaptation of the eponymous book of Amelia Nothomb, Amélie and tube metaphysics certainly heeled Arco to grab the Silver Crystal. With its artistic direction with pastel hues and these big eyes that pass through the spectator, impossible to remain insensitive to the charm of a « marshmallow film » par excellence. A remarkable inventiveness, the film by Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han is a jewel of writing. Until the age of two, Amélie is assimilated to a digestive tract, a staring vegetable, so « Lifeless » Reminds the little narrator who grows omniscient. All the salt in the film comes from the fact that the story is told from the perspective of the child, then considering itself the center of the world. Growing up, « Love » of his Japanese name which means « rain » sees his universe collapse. The Japan she loves so much is crossed by the stigma of war. Is her Japanese childhood just a parenthesis? « At that age, you notice everything but you don't understand anything. » Drop the young Amelie. A sentence that alone symbolizes all the beauty of childhood that is nothing but a permanent passage from trauma to another through world learning. A French animation candy for young and old to support in the room from 25 June.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
The egg of the angel
Japan | Release date : 1985 (next to the cinema)| Implementation : Mamaru Oshii | Annecy classics
Momoru Oshii... a name that for many evokes the gloomy essence of the 90s. Ten years before his masterpiece Ghost in the Shell, Angel egg 1985. A mysterious, avant-garde film; soporific will tell its detractors. Marked by a slowness characteristic of the staging of this anime not like the others, this medium film evokes a poem about the end times. Immersion in this work is to abandon all hope, humanity has been consumed, some scattered soldiers are fighting against whale shadows. And in the middle, a little girl almost mute meets a no more talkative man who gives him an egg. Voluntaryly cryptic, narration will probably unravel those who are used to text explanations, as well as those who love epileptic animation. We're here at the back of the new Chinese standards. Angel egg symbolizes an era suspended at the dawn of the XXIe century, as in Blade Runner. If we adhere to the minimalist proposals, Angel egg convinced by the strength of his desolate universe, a sign of an extinct civilization where the traces of human life are as petrified, even fossilized. Building on its architecture « Georgian », a corridor is a maze, like the state in which the characters are located. Are they purgatory? Are they really human? Unless it is a dream like the dream of the Dreamfish that gave birth to the island Cocolont in 1993 in The Legend of Zelda: Link. Bible myths are being diverted, hope is no longer part of the register of this residual world. A rare symbolic film in the Japanese animation landscape. A (re)discover in the cinema soon.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Death doesn't exist
Canada | Release date : 01/10/2025 | Implementation : Felix Dufour-Laperrière | Competition Contrechamp | Interview to come
Presented in the Contrechamp section, Death doesn't exist the question of direct action. Starting from a starting point of the political commitment of young activities, Felix Dufour-Laperrière embarks the spectator with this armed band ready to commit the irremediable. Far from condemning the use of violence directed against the wealthy who have become parasites of the society that they vampirize, the Canadian director prefers to highlight the internal upheavals of Helen, haunted by her accomplices while she abandons them at the time of the act. Designed as a revolution in the literal sense of the term, the film prints an introspective return on itself, on the struggles to be waged at all costs. Driven by an original artistic direction, the characters are tones in tone as in overprinting on an environment, whose brush strokes are seen in the background, as if the world remained, it, intangible to activism. The shift from one primary colour to another recalls radicality at work. A very literary film in the approach with replicas and monologues that hit. Death doesn't exist offers reflections on the passage of the conditional « I wish » Indicative « I want ». A fashion change today difficult and sign of the contemporary impasse to effectively transform reality.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Allah is not obliged
France | Release date : 2026 | Implementation : Zaven Najjar | Official competition | Interview to come
AIlah is not obliged is the adaptation of the eponymous novel of Ahmadou Kourouma published 25 years ago to the editions of the Seuil and having received the Renaudot prize the same year. Nearly a quarter of a century later, while the subject of child soldiers seems to occupy less Western chiefdoms like public opinion, Zaven Najjar puts the fate of these young children caught up in vice between the gangs of civil wars in West Africa of the 1980s/90s on the forefront. From Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, young Birahima will have to survive, slipping irreparably towards arms. We find the unique style of Zaven Najjar who signed the artistic direction of The Siren by Sepideh Farsi, Iranian director with whom we exchanged on the Iran-Iraq war in 2023 (and whose much expected Put your soul on your hand and walk had shaken the Cannes festival). As with his previous film, one finds an approach at the crossroads of documentary and fiction, Zaven having collected many testimonies from premises which he moreover involved on the musical part of the film. Also carried by a humour peculiar to the well tempered character of Birahima accompanied by his not very conventional marabout uncle, AIlah is not obliged recalls that « The child soldier is the most famous character of the late XXe century ».
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Jinsei
Japan | Release date : NC | Implementation : Ryuya Suzuki | Competition Contrechamp
Jinsei, it's kind of the meeting between Ubu and Japan. Film directed by Ryuya Suzuki, Jinsei is an absurd lesson. From birth to death, everyone lives with many nicknames, sometimes not always happy. Jinsei is the fresco of the life of a young man who ends up, carried by events, at the head of a curious boy band. Jinsei is going through the anguish of Japanese society. Built in ten acts for a life, this anti-hero, taciturn and driven by nothingness, sees his life unfold with a bold black humour. Directed in just a year and a half, Jinsei is a prowess for a first feature film, of course a bit disjointed, but which distinguished itself from the rest of the selection by the absurd spirit of his deluded proposal.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥
Housenka
Japan | Release date : NC | Implementation : Baku Kinoshita | Official competition
Presented in the section Work in progress last year, Housenka is the first feature film by Baku Kinoshiata. Obsessed by the stories of crimes and yakuzas, the Japanese director wanted to produce a film dedicated to this singular universe that traverses Japanese history. Unlike other Mafia films, Housenka take against our expectations. Here we follow the memories of a renegade, former yakuza sentenced to life and on his last days. Old Akutsu's not gonna be any longer. From his cell, he resounds his life with Nana and his son Kensuke to a flower housenka, which he has always wanted to remove from this versolated environment. The story alternates between sequences behind bars and moments of intimacy of this little family, where the unsaid and shadow of gangs constantly hovers. Driven by a good starting point, especially with the exchanges with this chattery flower, the film lacks some madness in its outcome. However, there is still an original and pleasant proposal to follow that makes us hope for a stage release for this promising first film.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥
Csongor és Tünde
Hungary | Release date : NC | Implementation : Máli Csaba, Pálfi Zsolt | Annecy presents
If this 48e edition of the festival of Annecy beat Hungarian pavilion with number of original short films, this is not Csongor és Tünde who convinced us. Adaptation of a Hungarian play by Mihály Vörösmarty from 1830, Máli Csaba's and Pálfi Zsolt's film never managed to break free from its time. One follows there a young prince who decides to undertake a journey in search of happiness, which is associated with Tünde, the supposed woman of his life whom he saw in a dream. Much too classic in its construction, this soulless tale refuses modernity; Still worse, some scenes are particularly embarrassing, starting with attitudes Ring some male characters, to say the least, problematic. Their behaviors are presented as gags as sexual assaults, all without any critical setbacks. As for the position of the princess, she is by nature in love with a mono-centered prince who has no quality to assert, if this is his royal title: as much as to say that we fall into all the cross-sections and framed representations of sexism. His artistic direction also left us with marble. Not everyone will like the round and loose side of the characters, since the models are usually ugly. If we understood the heritage approach at work, we would certainly have had to show more depth to modernize the piece. Still a film for the little ones... but with dubious representations and humor that almost always misses his shot. Proof of this, the room remained quiet during the sitting. Avoid.
Verdict : 🔥
ChaO
Japan | Release date : NC | Implementation : Yasuhiro Aoki | Official competition
In a world where humans and mermaids coexist, Stephan, an ordinary office worker meets Chao, a princess of the mermaid kingdom. ChaO, this is the story of an unlikely love story between two beings that everything opposes. With its light tone, the film only touches on the themes it evokes with humour. If some gags fly, it will be regretted that the care given to the motivations of the characters has not been pushed further. There was, however, much to start with more finesse this catapulted love story without any real belief; This partially deprives the viewer of attachment to emotions. Apart from these regrettable writing choices, the artistic direction is... strange. There are cardboard characters with realistic models. Unlike other movies shifted like The otra forma, a radical Colombian film, presented at Annecy in 2022, where citizens put their heads in press to have rectangular heads, ChaO does not clearly justify its differences of tone. However, we must believe that he had sincere qualities to convince the jury who chose to reward him. A victory for the Japanese, the last anniçois distinction dating from eight years ago with the co-acre of In a corner of this world !
Verdict : 🔥🔥
Planets
Japan / France | Release date : 11/003/2026 | Implementation : Momoko Seto | Official competition | Interview to come
Pflue The week of criticism in Cannes ended in beauty. Naturally, it was expected that Momoko Seto's film would appear in the official selection. The director of the CNRS managed to produce a film at the crossroads of genres. Children of the 90s who grew up with Microcosmos, also presented at Cannes in 1996, will recognize this fascination for all forms of life. If one likes to look up at the stars, modern man too often forgets to look at what is at his feet. It is this macro and micro approach that the French-Japanese director combines in this animated film at the crossroads of reality and fiction. A terrible starting point, the nuclear destruction of the Earth, dandelion achenes take off; Some manage to leave the atmosphere and then start an epic to colonize other stars. These achenes have their own language. Together they communicate with nature and constantly seek where to find refuge. Metaphor of refugees and the sense of life where humanity is just a drop of water in world history, Planets is an invitation to consider the living other than man's prism. The timelapse makes the earth breathe, which is contracted to the screen when a young pioneer shoot emerges from the ground. An extraordinary style film that reminds us that « Life always finds its way »Like old Ian Malcolm would say.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Predator : Killer of Killers
USA | Release date : 06/06/2025 | Implementation : Dan Trachtenberg, Joshua Wassung | Special meeting
There are privileges that we don't refuse. Released in early June on the Disney+ platform, Predator : Killer of Killers passed on a big screen at the Annecy festival. It is the last film by Dan Trachtenberg and Josh Wassung, with whom we exchanged at the end of the session. Designed as an anthology, the film plunges us into three different periods: the Vikings, the feudal Japan and the heart of Pearl Harbor. Three key moments of history, pretext for a deluge of fierce fighting between the cult monster and the best warriors of each era. Devilly well animated, this animated jewel fits into the wave initiated by Spiderman Into The Spiderverse. After the friendly reboot Prey, nevertheless rather wise, Dan Trachtenberg goes much further in terms of gore. We also wondered how the studio had been able to have certain scenes validated by Disney, little brought when it comes to talking about hemoglobin hectolitres. The project was actually more piloted by 20th Century Studios, to which the team presented a particularly graphic dismemberment scene as a test. Past as a letter to the post office, the sequence allowed the studio to have carte blanche. With his script on a post stamp, Predator : Killer of Killers is primarily conceived as a pure action film. Behind the project, there are also animators who have taken part in the video game and especially on the franchise Doom, well known for its visceral side. And it works! A very good entertainment that shows that creatives are never as good as when they are free.
Verdict : 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Awards
Long films
Feature Film Crystal
ARCO
Jury Prize
CHAO
Grand Prix Contrechamp
ENDLESS COOKIE
Jury Contrechamp Award
GWANG-JANG
Gan Foundation Award for Broadcast
OLIVIA AND INVISIBLE LAND TRAMBLES
Public prices
AMELIA AND TUBE METAPHYSICS
Paul Grimault Prize
PLANETS
Short films
Cristal of the short film
THE BOTTS OF NIGHT
Jury Prize
BEASTS
Public prices
THE BOTTS OF NIGHT
Jean-Luc Xiberras Prize for the first work
ZWERMEN
Alexeieff Prize – Parker
SAPPHO
The rest of the 2025 list is accessible Here.
BEASTS
Public prices
THE BOTTS OF NIGHT
Jean-Luc Xiberras Prize for the first work
ZWERMEN
Alexeieff Prize – Parker
SAPPHO
The rest of the 2025 list is accessible Here.
[...] And the NIFFF did not derogate from it at its closing ceremony. If the Annecy festival was committed to supporting the Iranians following Israel's flash attack, the NIFFF wanted to remind the [...]