Annecy 2019: Festival Reflection
I’ve been lucky enough, through my job as senior lecturer on the animation degree course at Leeds Arts University, to have been able to attend Annecy International Animation Festival for the past few years and I feel that I am now in a position to offer an objective perspective on the longest running animation festival in the world.
I probably shouldn’t start with a conclusion but, for those of you who don’t want to read a spectators ramblings about the festival, the gist of this writing will point towards the fact that if you have any vested interest in animation, whether as a viewer, a hobbyist, a student, a professional or an educator then this is the festival for you… please read on if you’d like to know why.
Since the early 1960’s Annecy has set a blueprint for what an animation festival should be and over the decades the event has grown to take over the whole town for a full week. Each year there is a theme with this year’s spotlight being aimed towards Japanese animation, the unofficial theme however, was rain….. and plenty of it! Despite the deluge over the first couple of days the mood was not dampened, auditoriums were filled, and the atmosphere was infectiously convivial. It serves as a reminder that the weather in the mountains can be very changeable so it is always wise to have an umbrella at hand, when it’s not raining you can use it as a parasol!
This year the festival programme presented films comprising of the usual excellent and diverse range of animation styles, genres and narratives presented over several sites across the town, including a giant inflatable screen at the lakeside. Masterclasses and work in progress presentations offered insight into process and potential futures articulated by industry leaders, legends and practitioners on the bleeding edge. Bookended by the Bonlieu theatre and the Imperial Palace, some of the sites can seem quite far out of the way but, with regular services providing transport links between theatres it is easy enough to get around should you need to.
The festival also hosts Mifa, the international Animation & Film Market, where industry sets up camp for the week to pitch, present, demonstrate and recruit. If you are a student your accreditation will give you a day pass for Mifa where it is possible to organise portfolio meetings and reviews with representatives from almost any animation company in the world. If you’re not a student or don’t want to sell or recruit and are not looking for a job then you can probably give Mifa a miss, and save money on the cost of your accreditation, but the market is a must for anyone who has a product or skill set to sell.
Annecy has the air of a music festival rather than an industry focused event and you will meet people ranging from students to industry leaders, all with a common interest in animation and quite often beer! Socialising, or networking as employers prefer to call it, is a major part of the festival and there are plenty of eateries and drinking establishments that you are likely to find yourself inhabiting until the early hours doing just that alongside other pass holders. (N.B. consumption of alcohol isn’t mandatory).
As I mentioned earlier, Annecy Animation Festival has been growing at a steady rate over the past few decades, even over the last few years I have noticed a rise in the number of passholders and I wonder if the event has finally reached critical mass. With accreditation numbers exceeding 11,000 this year and there being tickets available to the non-accredited public for many of the events, pretty much everything was ‘sold out’ and queuing for spare seats prior to screenings was at an all-time high. The online booking system, always a bit of a bun fight, crashed as soon as ticketing went live, leaving many pass holders frustrated at not having a chance to book their first-choice screenings and having to settle for whatever was left when access to ticketing was finally recovered. I am certain that the festival organisers are aware of the issues encountered this year and hopefully provision will be made to ensure a smoother experience for all accredited pass holders in future.
This said, I had an excellent time in Annecy this year. Even the students from my university who were camping through the apocalyptic rain storms had a great time and I believe that this is because Annecy Animation Festival is so much more than the sum of its screenings, it is about the people who attend and the atmosphere generated by 11000+ people with a passion for animation.
I don’t think that it is possible to overstate the importance of this festival on the animation calendar or how important it is for students to experience it, especially with the huge discount they receive which includes that day at Mifa. But I do hope that attendance numbers don’t rise too much more in the coming years for fear that it will burn itself out.
Tips for Annecy:
- Book your accommodation as early as possible
- Pack your umbrella as well as your sun cream
- Practice making and throwing paper planes
- Get used to queuing
- Pace yourself (more than 3 screenings a day is really hard work!)