This article was written for the May-June ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 350).

With an eclectic mix of global animation auteurs and first looks at some of the top features, shorts and TV projects of the year, the 2025 edition of Annecy promises to be one for the books!

Just when we thought the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and MIFA market couldn’t get any bigger or more ambitious, the organizers behind the popular event have upped the ante once again. In a recent interview, the festival’s artistic director Marcel Jean, CITIA director Mickaël Marin and CITIA manager Véronique Encrenaz revealed some of the highlights of this year’s global animation celebration, which takes place June 8-14 in the picture-perfect city in southeastern France.

Animation Magazine: Congrats on the 2025 edition’s phenomenal lineup. What are some of the must-see highlights?

Marcel Jean: I believe this is one of the first times that we’ve had the opportunity to really focus on TV animation. We have amazing guests such as Matt Groening and David Silverman (The Simpsons), and Raphael Bob-Waksberg (BoJack Horseman), which gives us the opportunity to put a spotlight on the groundbreaking work that has been done for television. We also have Marvel Animation at Annecy for the first time, as well as great creators from Cartoon Network’s 25-year history (Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, Pendleton Ward, Rebecca Sugar, J.G. Quintel, Adam Muto). It’s quite a rare occasion when the planets align and we can have all these creative artists in one place at the same time.

Annecy is often one of the first events of the year to spotlight projects that will go on to win all the year-end awards. The big Oscar recipients of the year — Flow and In the Shadow of the Cypress — were both Annecy winners last year. It seems that we have more animated movies coming out this year than ever before. What is your take on that?

Jean: This year, we see the continuation of a trend we witnessed with Flow and Memoir of a Snail, which are both auteur-driven indies. Flow had this very unique aesthetic and was almost a science-fiction movie with its vision of a postapocalyptic future. You know, Annecy was one of the first festivals that screened Gints Zilbalodis’ first movie, Away. I still remember the feelings I had when I first watched that movie. I thought, “Well it’s cool that one person created this movie all by himself,” but then it really managed to hold my interest … I thought he was such an exceptional talent. [This year], we have Momoko Seto’s Dandelion’s Odyssey, Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s Death Does Not Exist and Ugo Bienvenu’s Arco — all these movies have elements of science fiction as well as social criticism and climate change anxiety. It was very exciting to see animation creators tackle these important matters in a very personal way.

There was some controversy last year about including AI-created animated shorts. What did you decide to do this year?

Jean: We had a lot of shorts submitted this year that were either entirely or partially made with AI tools. We ended up with two shorts, one student-made and one professional project, in the Off-Limits section. These are shorts that actually address the way we think about AI. German director Ulu Braun’s Gerhard, which is running in the Off-Limits sidebar, is an example of this. I met him in 2008 or 2009 when he had an experimental work in a film festival in Croatia. He’s a very serious experimental filmmaker. As all experimental filmmakers [do], they use new tools in technology to create new art. Boris Labbé’s [VR] project [Ito Meikyū] also used AI, and he was awarded last year. In the early days of computer animation, people like Stan Vanderbeek and Peter Foldes experimented with the technology to create their shorts. This is what Ulu Braun did as well. That’s the reason I believe we can’t be dogmatic and just say no to AI. That’s not the solution. We would simply like to give the animation community the opportunity to reflect on AI.

What’s on tap for the big 40th anniversary year of the MIFA market?

Mickaël Marin and Véronique Encrenaz: It’s a special year for us, especially because we’ve both worked at the market for 20 years. We’ve seen the market grow and evolve during these decades. We are seeing an increase in the number of countries that are attending the market. We have new countries like Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Bangladesh that have their own pavilion. We are seeing more participation from African countries as well as Costa Rica, and regulars like Germany, Spain and Italy are having stronger participation than before. We’ve also adapted the MIPFA campus to encourage more student participation, and we have bigger tents for master classes and informal [ones]. We also have many workshops for new technologies in real time and AI. Animation in gaming continues to be a big draw, and we’re happy to have Riot and Fortiche return to Annecy for more panels about IP adaptations. There’s also a special focus on animated music videos and animated documentaries. We had over 17,400 attendees last year, and we expect to see more or less the same number this year.

Fantastic! As always, I have to ask you to give us some tips for having the best Annecy experience possible.

Marin: I would say make sure you check the weather forecast before, because you never know whether it’s going to be very warm or very cold or rainy!

Encrenaz: The key is to prepare in advance, because there is just so much content, and you can’t do everything. So you need to organize your time so you can hit all the points of interest, but also you have to allow yourself some time to meet people and enjoy your time.

Jean: Remember to carpe diem, or seize the day. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t get into a big screening. I assure you that, at the same time, you will be able to catch a real gem at another theater where there is a seat for you. Yes, it’s great to be one of the first people to see a big, anticipated movie, but you can also catch an incredible program of student shorts, where you will discover a huge unknown talent who will be very famous in five years! I remember seeing one of Spike Lee’s earliest shorts before he took his first movie to Cannes!

For more info and the latest schedule of events, visit annecyfestival.com.

So Many Movies, So Little Time!

A quick look at some of the upcoming big animated titles unspooling at Annecy this month.

Feature Film Competition

• Allah Is Not Obliged | Director: Zaven Najjar (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada)

• The Last Blossom | Baku Kinoshita (Japan)

• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain | Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han (France)

• Arco | Ugo Bienvenu (France)

• Decorado | Alberto Vázquez (Spain, France)

• Into the Mortal World | Zhong Ding (China)

• Death Does Not Exist | Felix Dufour-Laperrière (Canada, France)

• A Magnificent Life | Sylvain Chomet (France, Luxembourg, Belgium)

• Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake | Irene Iborra (Spain, France, Belgium, Chile)

• Dandelion’s Odyssey | Momoko Seto (France, Belgium)

Contrechampe Features

• Balentes | Giovanni Columbu (Italy)

• ChaO | Yasuhiro AOKI (Japan)

• Endless Cookie | Seth and Peter Scriver (Canada)

• Jinsei | Ryuya Suzuki (Japan)

• The Great History of Western Philosophy | Aria Covamonas (Mexico)

• Lesbian Space Princess | Emma Hough Hobbs, Leela Varghese (Australia)

• Memory Hotel | Heinrich Sabl (Germany)

• Nimuendajú | Tania Cristina Anaya (Brazil, Peru)

• Olivia & The Clouds | Tomás Pichardo Espaillat (Dominican Republic)

• Space Cadet | Kid Koala [Eric San] (U.S.A.)

• Tales from the Magic Garden | David Sukup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar, Jean-Claude Rozec (Czech Republic, France, Slovakia, Slovenia)

• The Square | Director: Bo-Sol Kim (South Korea)

Midnight Specials

• All You Need Is Kill | Kenichiro Akimoto (Japan)

• Another World | Directors: Kai Chung, Tommy Ng (Hong Kong)

• Nightmare Bugs | Saku Sakamoto, Osamu Fukutani (Japan)

• Mononoke The Movie: Chapter II – The Ashes of Rage | Kenji Nakamura, Kiyotaka Suzuki (Japan)

• Heart of Darkness | Rogerio Nunes (France, Brazil)

Works in Progress

Features:

• Carmen | Sebastian Laudenbach (France)
• The Devil’s Vein | Germán Acuña (Chile, Colombia)
• In Waves | Phuong Mai Nguyen (France, Belgium, U.S.A.)
• Zsazsa Zaturnnah | Avid Liongoren (The Philippines, France)
• Fallen | Louis Clichy, Alexandre Astier (France, Belgium)
• Daisy’s Life | Masaaki Yuasa (Japan, France)
• Heirloom | Upamanyu Bhattacharyya (India)
• The Cat in the Hat | Erica Rivinoja, Alessandro Carloni (U.S.A)
• The Mourning Children | Sunao Katabuchi (Japan)
• Lucy Lost | Olivier Clert (France)
• Fairyheart | Anita Doron (Hungary, Canada, Germany)
• The Violinist | Ervin Han, Raul Garcia (Singapore, Italy, Spain)

Series:

• Bitches | Caiman Productions (France)
• Women Wearing Shoulder Pads | Adult Swim, Cinema Fantasma (U.S.A., Mexico)
• Get Jiro | Warner Bros. Animation (U.S.A.)
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch | Ubisoft , Netflix (France, U.S.A.)

Feature Film Screening Events
Includes new additions announced May 26, full screenings and first-look footage reveals.

• Animal Farm | Aniventure, The Imaginarium (U.K.)
• The Bad Guys 2 | DreamWorks Animation (U.S.A.)
• Elio | Pixar (U.S.A.)
• Fixed | Sony Pictures Animation, Netflix (U.S.A.)
• GOAT | Sony Pictures Animation, Unanimous Media (U.S.A.)
• High in the Clouds | Gaumont Animation (France, U.K.)
• Hoppers | Pixar (U.S.A.)
• How to Train Your Dragon | Universal Pictures (U.S.A.)
• In Your Dreams | Netflix (U.S.A.)
• Maya, Give Me Another Title | Partizan Films (France)
• Pets on a Train | TAT Productions (France)
• Predator: Killer of Killers |  20th Century Studios (U.S.A.)
• Smurfs | Paramount & Nickelodeon Animation (U.S.A.)
• The Songbirds’ Secret | Folimage, Les Armateurs, Lunanime (France, Belgium)
• The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants | Paramount & Nickelodeon Animation (U.S.A.)
• Toy Story 5 | Pixar (U.S.A.)
• Zootopia 2 | Walt Disney Animation Studios (U.S.A.)