Annecy Announces 20 Animated Features In Competition For 2020 Edition

The French animation festival Annecy has announced that 20 features will be presented at its 2020 edition, which is taking place online this year.

The selections were made from a total of 76 submitted features. Ten of the films will be presented in the main competition, while the other features will be screened as part of its competitive Contrechamp category. The latter category highlights the “most unique feature films, as well as those that create more challenges vis-à-vis the audience.”

Japan leads the way with four films in the selection, followed by three from France. No films from the United States or Canada were chosen for competition. However, 18 countries are represented, including countries that haven’t traditionally released many animated features, such as Chile, Mauritius and Egypt.

Annecy’s organizers have themselves pointed out the noticeable lack of women directors in the line-up. Nineteen of the films were directed by men. Only one woman director is represented: Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen for the film My Favorite War, which is based on her personal story of growing up in the USSR during the Cold War.

The festival also notes that online attendees will not be able to view all of the films on their festival platform. “The financing conditions and session rights according to specific territories or markets prohibit certain films having unrestricted access,” the festival said in its press release. “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 are the selections in both categories:

Feature Films In Official Selection – In Competition

• The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks by Andrey Khrzhanovsky (Russia)
• Kill It and Leave this Town by Mariusz Willczynski (Poland)
• Little Vampire by Joann Sfar (France)
• Jungle Beat: The Movie by Brent Dawes (Mauritius)
• Lupin III The First by Takashi Yamazaki (Japan)
• 7 Days War by Yuta Murano (Japan)
• Ginger’s Tale by Konstantin Scherkin (Russia)
• Bigfoot Family by Ben Stassen, Jérémie Degruson (Belgium, France)
• Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary by Rémi Chayé (France, Denmark)
• Nahuel and the Magic Book by German Acuña (Chile)

Feature Films In the Contrechamp

• On Gaku: Our Sound! by Kenji Iwaisawa (Japan)
• The Old Man – The Movie by Mikk Mägi, Oskar Lehemaa (Estonia)
• Lava by Ayar Blasco (Argentina)
• Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery by Rebus Dalibor Baric (Croatia)
• Beauty Water by Kyung-hun Cho (South Korea)
• My Favorite War by Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen (Latvia, Norway)
• The Shaman Sorceress by Jae-huun Ahn (South Korea)
• The Legend of Hei by Ping Zhang (China)
• True North by Eiji Han Shimizu (Japan, Indonesia)
• The Knight and the Princess by Bashir El Deek, Ibrahim Mousa (Saudi Arabia, Egypt)

Annecy will take place online from June 15-30. For details on taking part, visit Annecy.org.

(Pictured at top: “Lupin III The First”)