Annecy Selects 23 Animated Features For Competition Lineups

Animated feature is booming all over the globe, and nowhere is this more evident than in the feature film competitions at the Annecy Festival.

Annecy has selected 23 features for its two feature-length competition programs: the Official Competition and the Contrechamp (Reverse Shot) Competition, the latter category designed to honor edgier and quirkier features that might otherwise not receive the attention they deserve.

One of the films in competition, the Holocaust drama The Most Precious of Cargoes, will screen as Annecy’s opening night film, on Sunday, June 9. The 2d film marks the feature animation directorial debut of Michel Hazanavicius, who won the best picture Oscar for his 2011 film The Artist.

Other major names in the competition include Oscar-winner Adam Elliot (Harvie Krumpet), who has thje new feature Memoir of a Snail; My Life as a Zucchini director Claude Barras, whose new film is Sauvages; and A Silent Voice director Naoko Yamada, with the freshly-completed The Color Within.

The oldest filmmaker in competition: 84-year-old French animation legend Jean-François Laguionie, who has a new feature, A Boat in the Garden. To put his career in perspective, Laguionie won the grand prix at Annecy in 1965 for his short film La demoiselle et le violoncelliste.

Nine of the 23 films originate from Asian countries. Japan leads the Asian wave with five entries, but countries like China, South Korea, Philippines, and Pakistan are also represented.

Only one feature from North America is in competition: the Canadian film Sunburnt Unicorn.

In total, 23 films will screen in this year’s official competition, 12 in the main competition and another 11 in Contrechamp.

Annecy 2023 Official Competition

• Into the Wonderwoods, Vincent Paronnaud, Alexis Ducord (France, Luxembourg)
• Flow, Gints Zilbalodis (Latvia, Belgium, France)
• Ghost Cat Anzu, Yoko Kuno, Nobuhiro Yamashita (Japan, France)
• The Colors Within, Naoko Yamada (Japan)
• The Most Precious of Cargoes, Michel Hazanavicius (France, Belgium)
• Totto-Chan: The Litte Girl at the Window, Shinnosuke Yakuwa (Japan)
• Memoir of a Snail, Adam Elliot (Australia)
• Rock Bottom, Maria Trenor (Spain, Poland)
• Sauvages, Claude Barras (Switzerland)
• A Boat in the Garden, Jean-François Laguionie (France)
• The Imaginary, Yoshiyuki Momose (Japan)
• The Storm, Zhigang “Busifan” Yang (China)

Contrechamp Competition

• Sultana’s Dream, Isabel Herguera (Spain)
• Gill, Jae huun Ahn (South Korea)
• The Missing, Carl Joseph Papa (Philippines)
• Living Large, Kristina Dufkova (Czech Republic)
• Black Butterflies, David Baute (Spain, Panama)
• Our Crazy Love, Nelson Botter Jr. (Brazil)
• Pelikan Blue, Laszlo Csaki (Hungary)
• Journey of Shadows, Yves Netzhammer (Switzerland)
• Sunburnt Unicorn, Nick Johnson (Canada)
• The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe, Goh Koga (Japan)
• The Glassworker, Usman Riaz (Pakistan)