Bright Future Beckons for 2022 Annecy Residency Projects

Alissa Simon Film CriticSci-fi and fantasy fans can soon rejoice in another intrepid YA heroine as “Vesper,” the Lithuania-France-Belgium co-production from directors-writers Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper, makes its world premiere in competition at Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Saturday. The Czech debut marks a busy start to the month for the filmmakers. They will also present the film at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in Korea and the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland.The sci-fi-fantasy thriller, which takes place after the collapse of the earth’s eco-system and centers on a 13-year-old girl caring for her paralyzed father, who must use her wits and bio-hacking abilities to fight for survival and the possibility of a future, has proved a popular item for sales agent Anton.

Camille Kostek is sharing an inside look at what her post-NFL life with boyfriend Rob Gronkowski will look like. "With the news of him kind of stepping away from football … I think we will be able to maybe explore ... I mean enjoying time together and getting to know each other even more," Kostek told Extra.  "I think the pandemic allowed us to get to know each other in that time.

battling rhabdomyosarcoma as a child. The 26-year-old is set to play in his second-ever ATP Tour event in Eastbourne following his stunning debut at Queen's earlier this week. Peniston has become one of the most talked-about players in British tennis following his main draw debut at the Queen's Club, where he downed top seed and recent French Open finalist Casper Ruud en route to the quarter-final.

Variety watches the shorts in Annecy’s main competition selection and picks 10 of our favorites. We’re not saying these are the best 10 shorts this year, though four won prizes, but we believe each brings something that shouldn’t be missed.“Anxious Body,” (Yoriko Mizushiri, France, Japan)Screening at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Mizushiri’s fourth short and the first project co-produced by Japanese New Deer and France’s Miyu Productions.

Directors Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre take home the top prize for their animated film Little Nicholas–Happy as Can Be at the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Little Nicholas – Happy As Can Be” scooped this year’s Annecy Animation Festival’s top Cristal Award for best feature in a 20 plaudit award adjudication which also saw Wes Anderson win a Jury Award for best commissioned film.The biggest winners at Annecy this year, however, was the Festival itself, animation at large and, when it came to movie prizes, France in particular.Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, Annecy’s top feature winner is classic French animated feature fare in artistic and industrial terms: 2D, based on a literal source – writer René Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé’s comic-strip, and featuring large Gallic IP: Little Nicholas, France’s quintessential schoolboy, who here meets his makers, Goscinny and Sempé. Produced by Aton Soumache, one of the dominant figures on France’s animation scene and producer of “The Little Prince,” France’s biggest movie export in 2015, “Little Nicholas” may look exquisite at times, but, family fare, packs a more modern pace and focus on entertaining than much arthouse 2D cinema.The top Cristal for “Little Nicholas” surprised some.

Lise Pedersen Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) has unveiled his first-ever animation film project at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.Entitled “The Most Precious of Cargos,” it is an adaptation of the eponymous best-selling book by acclaimed French playwright and children’s books author Jean-Claude Grumberg, who is co-writing the film with Hazanavicius.Told in the form of a classic fairy tale in 2D animation, it is set during World War II, and tells the story of a poor woodcutter and his wife who live deep in the Polish forest.

JD Linville Swiss animator and director Raphaëlle Stolz (“Le Salsifis du Bengale”) has debuted her new short film “Miracasas” at Annecy, where it is in competition with 37 other animated short films as part of the official selection.Stolz employs a flowing and impressionist animation style to tell the story of Ernesto, an almost-dead soldier carried to his final destination deep in the Brazilian jungle, where villagers hope his death will usher in new life. The film is a French and Swiss co production between Nadasy Film, a prominent Swiss animation studio, Komadoli Studio and Swiss public broadcaster RTS Radio Télévision Suisse.Showing a gift for collaboration (her short “Le Salsifis du Bengale” was an adaptation of a Robert Desnos poem), Stolz interprets and transforms Augusto Zanovello’s story with her singular style, with wide brush strokes, clever humor and a nod to classic animation.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticBelgian graphic artist Laurent Durieux has designed some of the most gorgeous movie posters of the past decade, working not for the studios but in custom-published runs just for collectors and fans. You’ve probably seen his work: intricate, finely tooled reimaginings of classic films — “Jaws,” “King Kong” and “Casablanca,” to name a few — produced as limited-edition screenprints by companies such as Mondo, resold on eBay for thousands of dollars.Durieux’s retrofuturist designs have appeared on everything from bottles of Francis Ford Coppola’s wine to the cover of The New Yorker.

Lise Pedersen France’s animation industry is thriving, according to the latest figures published by the country’s national film center, the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée), during the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.The country’s animation production levels in 2021 were the second highest ever, at 357 hours of programs, surpassed only by 2006, which reported 395 hours.French animation, whose long-established reputation of excellence and know-how has been a draw for international co-productions for decades, has proved increasingly attractive to international co-productions thanks to its generous tax rebate for international projects, which was revised upwards from 20% to 30% of spend in 2015.

EXCLUSIVE: London and Paris-based production and sales company Film Constellation has inked pre-sales on family adventure animation The Last Dinosaur following its Cannes market launch.

EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of us revealing their Katy Perry animated musical Melody, The Trial Of The Chicago 7 and The Pale Blue Eye outfit Cross Creek Pictures and animation specialist Zag have set an agreement to develop and produce a slate of ten animated, live-action and hybrid format features, the majority of which will be musicals.

Lise Pedersen Six teams of budding animation professionals have pitched their projects at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival as part of a new mentoring program for women from France and Africa launched by Les Femmes s’Animent (LFA), an organization that supports women in animation.The aim of the initiative, entitled “A Woman’s Journey,” is to help women who want to create short animated films but are not part of, nor have access to, the animation industry.

Marta Balaga France’s Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival is celebrating Swiss animation – which marked its 100th anniversary back in 2021 – with a slew of retrospectives, screenings and special events.In its Official Selection, Switzerland is represented through 13 films spread across different sections.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentAnnecy this year is all about innovation, in animation  style – seen in the villain of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” unveiled on Monday – in Europe’s push into adult animation, and even in new ways of connecting with audiences, as DreamWorks Animation has demonstrated in a joyous and packed open air screening of “The Bad Guys.”A tradition at Annecy, the lakeside outdoor events usually serve to introduce new generations of Annecy kids and families to modern animation classics. Under Marcel Jean’s artistic direction, these are becoming ever more recent.

Emilio Mayorga “Unicorn Wars” (Alberto Vázquez)Alberto Vázquez, the director of “Birdboy: The Forgotten Children,” a Gkids pickup for North America, delivers an apocalyptic anti-war parable narrating the ancestral war between teddy bears bigots and environmentalist unicorns with irreverent visual exuberance and moments of real horror.WIP’S“They Shot the Piano Player” (Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal)Trueba and Mariscal’s much-awaited new collaboration after their 2012 Oscar-nominated “Chico & Rita” is a co-production with France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Peru. Sold by Film Constellation, project threads “music, politics and documentary as well as fiction, thriller and memory,” Trueba has said.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentFortified by top executive appointments, London-based Academy Award winning Passion Pictures is driving powerfully into long-form animation.It has already produced episodes of cult Netflix series “Love, Death & Robots” – “Life Hatch” and “Ice,” which scored three Emmy Awards – as well as Netflix’s “Headspace,” Disney’s “101 Dalmatian Street” and Nickelodeon’s “Lego City Adventures.”Building on that, Passion will unveil two new projects, “Greetings from the Apocalypse” and “Love,” at the MIFA TV Series & Specials Pitches on June 16. Passion is the only company to have two titles in this category which currently packs a lot of the excitement and innovation at the cutting edge of current animation.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorKarlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival’s industry section, Eastern Promises, has unveiled its lineup of 35 film projects, which will be showcased during the Works in Progress, Works in Development – Feature Launch, First Cut+ Works in Progress and Odesa International Film Festival Works in Progress presentations.

Emiliano Granada In what promises to be an incredibly busy Annecy, Brinca Animation Studio will premiere its animated feature “Home is Somewhere Else” at the French animation meet’s Contrechamp section, its major sidebar.Co-directed by Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, the Mexican animated feature reflects on the lives of the many undocumented Hispanic immigrants arriving in the U.S.; less interested in simply stating the immense difficulty that this means for them and keener on observing with care the emotional consequences that it entails. Built around the voices of real characters and their families, the toon’s varied styles become deeply intimate.