Annecy International Animation Film Festival
From the 11st to 16th of June of this year 2018 we had the pleasure of being able to attend, for the first time, MIFA festival and market (Marché International du Film d'Animation) of animation par excellence in Europe: ANNECY !!! ! Note the tone of enthusiasm that still lingers after this experience. We enjoyed the work of many people in the industry, attended presentations, projects and more in a fairytale city.
This year, the ideal circumstances have arisen to go and be able to enjoy the full experience proposed by the festival. On one hand, it was thank to PopUp’s director, a Valencian animation series in which we are working, which belongs Somnis Animació Production Company, who has been granted by Generalitat Valenciana for its pilot chapter. Located in a palace full of professionals who had in their hands the future projects that will see the light in the coming years - major producers such as Netflix, Cartoon Network, Moviestar + - or co-production among other smaller ones, we joined our director in meetings in MIFA market looking for funding for the first season, hoping good news about it can be told you all soon.
On the other hand, our beloved director Maria Lorenzo and family were with us on our first trip, we had the pleasure to see her short film Impromtu (2017), in which we worked, selected in a screening dedicated to music. Classical (Music and Animated Movies) a screening that featured short films such as Le Moine et le Poisson (1994) by Michaël DUDOK DE WIT or Carnival of Animals (2016) by Michaela PAVLATOVA. At the end of the short and as an Annecy festival practice, the lights went on, we got up from the chair and those present applauded our work. This tradition seemed marvellous to us, since many times it seems you do not get the chance to see the people behind so many hours of work and with this simple action, the festival gives rise to applause to the present artists, putting them face for a few seconds. This detail, made us have goosebumps and an incredible illusion, especially for being able to share it with Maria, so from here we applaud the festival.
Another reason why the festival was important for us this year was the celebration of the first Women in Animation Spain meeting, which we attended. As women who have a role and a part in the animation industry, we feel responsible for supporting this type of initiatives and actively participa in the future organization. We had enjoyable meetings with very important women with years of experience in the sector: directors, producers, screenwriters, animators, students, festival directors ... All together could talk about the first steps to make a Spanish association of women in the animation industry.
Finally, we were able to see some of the selected or pre-release films such as The Incredibles 2 (2018) by Pixar, presented by its director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, 1999 or Ratatouille, 2007) and the previous short film Bao (2018) presented by the new director Domee Shi who stole our hearts with her enthusiasm and happiness when talking about the development of the project. We also attended the viewing of the Italian film Cinderella de Cat (2017) and the American Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires (2018), two very peculiar projects and different from each other. We really liked how the festival is set up, although we were new and payed the price at some moments, we are certain that next year we will come back.