Fast summary Annecy 2025
Jorge Vidal
This year 2025 I was able to enjoy a stay in Annecy, the reference Animation Festival in the world.
I have allowed myself a few lines with my humble impressions.
It is clear that professionals are concerned about AI, especially students and freelancers. From my point of view, the new generations will see their motivation biased at all levels, but especially at THE creative level.
Behind closed doors, there have been some small PROTESTS with no real impact.
The companies, on their side, have (with some exceptions) also shown a slight shiver of fear. New pipelines are announced, but nobody really specifies what the new pipelines consist of.
The two most talked-about words were: IP (Intellectual Property) followed by ‘diversity’.
The future of some companies is looking towards the original creation of their own content. One example is Rodeo Fx, which with the purchase of Mikros opens a line closer to animated film production than VFX.
The CNC has shown in consistent data a sharp drop in the sector, mainly in cinemas, which is of great national concern. It has also pointed to the closure of several companies in recent years and the destruction of jobs.
Youtube points as the leading content distributor. In my opinion, together with Netflix and its “original” content.
I would like to review three feature films that I have seen (although I haven't had time to see all the ones competing) and which are excellent :
“Arco” is a mix of several essential and clearly referenced commercial films: “Superman”, “Back to the Future”, “Ponyo”, “ET” and the Miyazaki’s “Sherlock Holmes” series (regarding animation characthers), but mashed into a refreshingly modern design. Excellent storytelling and execution in the effectively award-winning film of the year.
“Allah is not Obliged”, you could call it “Cidade de Deus” in animation. Shocking non-fiction that should not go unnoticed. Explains the fate of children of war, based on a novel by Ahmadou Kourouma. Despite a little raw look, has excellent motion capture (or maybe rotoscoping, I´m not sure it is Blender) represents a very real shooting look and dialogues.
“Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol”. After the slow and disappointing “The Illusionist”, not for its artistic quality but for its slow and soporific pace, this new film is excellently paced, bringing to life the biopic of Marcel Pagnol, an unknown in other borders French figure who laid the foundations of French cinema by pushing for the creation of tariffs on American cinema to prevent the destruction of the domestic industry. Of course he was a writer and filmaker. Fantastic.