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Arco, a French animated feature about of unexpected friendship and the fate of a world impacted by climate change, has won the Cristal for best film at this year’s Annecy film festival.

The feature debut of famed French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu, which premiered in Cannes and counts Natalie Portman among its producers, follows Arco, a 10‑year‑old boy from the year 2932 who inadvertently travels back in time, via a rainbow, to 2075, where he encounters Iris, a young girl living through environmental collapse. Their burgeoning friendship becomes a tender yet urgent bond across time, rooted in innocence, curiosity and shared heartbreak. In her rave Hollywood Reporter review, Lovia Gyarkye called Arco “a considered meditation on ecological disaster within the dulcet grooves of a charming story about adolescent friendship.”

‘Endless Cookie’ Courtesy of the Annecy Film Festival

The top prize for the Contrechamp sidebar section went to Endless Cookie, a Canadian...

Every now and then, a film comes along that transcends its genre, reshaping the cinematic landscape and becoming something of a cultural phenomenon. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is one such movie.

Released in 1975, this thriller didn’t just win audiences over; it reinvented the concept of the summer blockbuster. But its influence didn’t stop there. Jaws secured a rare spot in the hearts of filmmakers worldwide, including one of the most celebrated animators of all time, Hayao Miyazaki.

A scene from Jaws | Credits: Universal Pictures

From the pulse-pounding score that sticks to your bones to the ever-tightening noose of suspense, Jaws was a cultural earthquake, setting the stage for the blockbuster era that would follow. And then there’s that shark. It didn’t just swim into our screens—it sunk its teeth into the very heart of Hollywood, leaving a legacy that continues to send ripples through the industry.

2014’s Boyhood took 12 years to make. Some of these films make Boyhood look like an episode of South Park.

14 ‘Kill It and Leave This Town’: 14 Years

Polish animator Mariusz Wilczyński set out to make a short animated film about a person whose entire family dies, so they run off to a land of memories where time doesn’t exist and everyone is alive. At some point, Wilczyński decided it should actually become a feature length psychological horror, which took just a smidge longer to animate.

13 ‘The Evil Within’: 15 Years

Writer/director Andrew Getty self-financed this horror film, which was based on his childhood nightmares, for about $6 million. He filmed his deepest fears inside his own mansion, toiled away for years on special effects, and died before he could finish. The producer had to do the final editing to get it across the finish line.

12 ‘Pakeezah’: 16 Years

The...

Adam Elliot’s oddball Aussie feature Memoir of a Snail has won the Cristal award for best feature film at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival, the world’s leading international animation fest.

The dark dramedy, about a lonely, snail-obsessed hoarder — voiced by Succession star Sarah Snook — recounting her life story to one of her beloved gastropods, is Elliot’s first feature since 2009’s Mary and Max, which also won the top honor at Annecy. An impressive group of Australian A-listers, including Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana and Nick Cave provide supporting voice work. IFC Films picked up North American rights to Memoir of a Snail ahead of the festival.

Flow, a drama from Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis (Away), which follows a cat that survives a world-destroying deluge on a boat with a collection of other animals, won this year’s jury award and audience prize, voted on by Annecy attendees.

“A New Dawn,” the feature debut of Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, an animator on Makoto Shinkai’s blockbuster “Your Name,” is one draw in a five-title Annecy Animation Showcase which involves producers of real impact on the global independent animation scene.

The showcase will unveil a second brand-new animation project, “Mu-Ki-Ra,” co-produced by “Unicorn Wars” backer Abano Producións. The Showcase also features two key French prestige animation titles: “Conference of the Birds,” now backed by Le Pacte, and “In Waves,” from Silex Films, Anonymous Content, and leading sales agency Charades. Rounding up the selection is the anticipated Mexican feature “The Language of Birds.”

The Annecy Festival has long been the most important date on the international animation calendar, unfolding on the picturesque shores of Lake Annecy in France each summer.

In 2016, Cannes’ Marché du Film started providing a spring sneak peek at a small collection of work-in-progress titles that would...

The November 2020 lineup for The Criterion Channel has been unveiled, toplined by a Claire Denis retrospective, including the brand-new restoration of Beau travail, along with Chocolat, No Fear, No Die, Nenette and Boni, Towards Mathilde, 35 Shots of Rum, and White Material.

There will also be a series celebrating 30 years of The Film Foundation, featuring a new interview with Martin Scorsese by Ari Aster, as well as a number of their most essential restorations, including films by Jia Zhangke, Ritwik Ghatak, Luchino Visconti, Shirley Clarke, Med Hondo, and more.

There’s also David Lynch’s new restoration of The Elephant Man, retrospectives dedicated to Ngozi Onwurah, Nadav Lapid, and Terence Nance, a new edition of the series Queersighted titled Queer Fear, featuring a new conversation between series programmer Michael Koresky and filmmaker and critic Farihah Zaman, and much more.

See the lineup below and learn more on the official site.

Grégoire Melin’s Paris-based Kinology will sell Sacrebleu’s upcoming animated feature “Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds,” set to host Was an Annecy Works in Progress panel at the upcoming digital version of the world’s largest animation festival and market.

At March’s Cartoon Movie in the French port city of Bordeaux, the films singular visuals and family-friendly story caught the eye of many in attendance, and makes it one of the most anticipated productions set to participate at this year’s Annecy.

Kinology has a strong reputation in dealing with independent arthouse animated features, including the critically acclaimed 2014 Annecy main competition player “Mune: Guardian of the Moon.”

“We’re thrilled to partner with Ron and Benoit on such a unique, poetic and emotional journey; it has everything to become a true future kids’ classic in the line of ‘The King and the Mockingbird’ and ‘Kirikou,’” Kinology CEO Grégoire Melin told Variety.

Ryan Lambie Sep 13, 2016

In 1986, Hayao Miyazaki released one of his very best films. We look back at the lasting power and influence of Laputa: Castle In The Sky.

How does humanity quench its thirst for progress while at the same time protecting the environment? Can technology and nature exist side by side, or will our destructive tendencies always get in the way? Those are questions that underscore many of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, from the lighter-than-air eco fable Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind to his final animated feature, The Wind Rises.

In Miyazaki’s work, there’s a constant tension at play between nature and machines, between the tranquility of rural Japan and the industrial revolution of its post war era. The son of an aeronautical engineer, Miyazaki grew up as Japan rebuilt itself in the middle of the 20th century; he was born into a generation with...

Youngsters and oldsters alike…here is the reel deal: The New York International Children’s Film Festival (Nyicff) will be making its presence known in the upcoming days. On tap for the 18th annual event will be a noted variety of creative animated films and shorts for all ages to enjoy and relish. The New York International Children’s Film Festival promises to serve up an array of animated showcases that boasts all styles and formats that should prove imaginative and appealing to our past and present childhood memories.

Please note that the Nyicff will run its operation from February 27, 2015 to March 22, 2015. Additionally, the majority of these impressive feature-length and short films have experienced critical acclaim overseas. Therefore, the impact of the Nyicff’s cinematic selections should be rewarding for ardent fans of animated film fodder designed to capture the spirit of its enthusiastic viewers.

Among the films being displayed...

Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings is out this weekend. Yet the buzz remains about the casting controversy rather than the (apparently low) quality of the film itself. Rupert Murdoch tweeted that as far as he’s concerned, Egyptians have always been white. I wouldn’t begin to try to exhaustively explain the Australian media mogul’s unfortunate perspective. There is, however, something fascinating and troubling about the whitewashing of Egypt because of 1) its role in the Bible and 2) its place in ancient history. Not only does it belie a misconception of Ancient Egypt, it also tends to eclipse any acknowledgment of Egypt as an existing nation of 87 million people who possess a rich culture and who write in Arabic, not hieroglyphics. So, here’s a proposal. Don’t go see Exodus: Gods and Kings. Instead, take a few minutes and dive into the tradition of modern Egyptian animation. There...

In 1946, the French animator Paul Grimault and poet/screenwriter Jacques Prévert set out to make what they hoped would be the first French animated feature film, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep.” Prévert was already a legend, having written Le jour se lève and Children of Paradise for director Marcel Carné. Meanwhile, Grimault’s wonderfully iconoclastic fables had won favor both during and after the war. You wouldn’t think two such heavy-duty names would meet much resistance, but within a couple of years, Grimault and Prévert had lost control of the project, and an incomplete, 63-minute version was released without their approval in 1953. That also made its way to U.S. shores in a dubbed version as The Curious Case of Mr. Wonderbird.A couple of decades later, the duo set out to complete the film. Prévert worked on the new script until...

A long time in the making, Reach Me, from filmmaker/actor John Herzfeld brings ‘positive thinking’ and ‘self-help’ to the big screen. It stars a bevy of Herzfeld’s actor friends and friends of friends, including Sylvester Stallone, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Connolly.

The title is one of a dozen or so newcomers opening in limited release this weekend. Music Box’s Happy Valley and Kino Lorber’s Monk With A Camera are among Friday’s debuting documentaries.

Happy Valley, named after the area where Pennsylvania State University is located, dives into the child sexual-abuse scandal that rocked Penn State, while Monk looks at an unlikely ascetic who gave up life in the fast lane.

Kino Lorber also is launching Iranian Western Vampire pic A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which it is releasing with Vice Films. The title, which was born out of a previous short film, debuted at Sundance in January.

The most swooning and elegant hand-drawn animation masterpiece to climax with a giant robot attack, Paul Grimault's The King and the Mockingbird wings onto stateside screens at last, after a near-30-year gestation — and then another 30 of baffling obscurity after that. Grimault initiated the project in '48, but his charming fable quickly fell afoul of troubles even kings and robots can't stand up to: rights issues. In 1980 he released the 82-minute version we have today, with about half its length derived from an incomplete 1952 iteration; now the full thing is at last restored and available and just waiting for you to gape, laugh, and cheer at it. The story is a gently surrealist gloss on Hans Christian Andersen, steeped in Tintin, Metropolis, Sno...

With only six feature films to his name, four of which featured his iconic onscreen alter ego, the cinema of Jacques Tati remains an island of unique delight despite his influence on decades of filmmakers since and comparative efforts of peers from his own period (considering Marguerite Duras’ critique, now widely accepted, concerning the taken-for-granted stylistic likeness between Tati and Robert Bresson, a director whose subject matters were a bit less pleasant or comical). Without Tati and his bumbling character Monsieur Hulot, sputtering about memorably in a series of some of the most well-crafted moments of ingenious, highly organized chaos ever put to celluloid, we’d be without latter day influences, like Roy Andersson, Otar Iosseliani, several Peter Sellers characters, and even Rowan Atkinson’s similarly crafted Mr. Bean.

At the time, Tati’s obvious influences date back to the silent era, where Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin crafted the...

The King and the Mockingbird is one of those legendary animated features with a tortured production history, along the lines of Richard Williams’s The Thief and the Cobbler and Yuri Norshtein’s still-unfinished The Overcoat. French artist Paul Grimault began the project in the late 1940s under the title The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep, taken from a Hans Christian Andersen story. The script was by Jacques Prévert, by that point one of the most important poets and screenwriters working in France. In spite of all these talents, however, production stalled and a great deal of money was lost. Grimault’s studio, Les Gemeaux, was forced to close and his former partner released an unfinished version without his permission in 1952. Eventually Grimault regained the rights to the project, secured funding and was able to finally complete his own version of the project in the late 1970s. It was renamed Le Roi et l’oiseau, literally...

Drafthouse Films and Participant Media have jointly acquired all Us rights to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look Of Silence, set to premiere in Venice on Thursday (August 28). In other news, Open Road has dated Triple Nine, Millennium has acquired The World Made Straight and Lionsgate plans a Saw tenth anniversary re-release.

Oppenheimer’s follow-up to The Act Of Killing will receive its Canadian premiere in Toronto on September 9 and is a companion piece to this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary.

The Look Of Silence (pictured) explores the legacy of the Indonesian genocide from the victim’s point of view, following the brother of a murdered man as he confronts the killers.

Signe Byrge Sørensen produced and the executive producers are Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and André Singer.

The parties plan a summer 2015 Us release and negotiated the deal with Cinephil’s Philippa Kowarsky for Sorensen and Final Cut For Real.

Open Road has set a September 11 release for the...

Drafthouse Films and Participant Media have jointly acquired all Us rights to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look Of Silence, set to premiere in Venice on Thursday (August 28). In other news, Open Road has dated Triple Nine, Millennium has acquired The World Made Stratight and Lionsgate plans a Saw tenth anniversary re-release.

Oppenheimer’s follow-up to The Act Of Killing will receive its Canadian premiere in Toronto on September 9 and is a companion piece to this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary.

The Look Of Silence (pictured) explores the legacy of the Indonesian genocide from the victim’s point of view, following the brother of a murdered man as he confronts the killers.

Signe Byrge Sørensen produced and the executive producers are Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and André Singer.

The parties plan a summer 2015 Us release and negotiated the deal with Cinephil’s Philippa Kowarsky for Sorensen and Final Cut For Real.

Open Road has set a September 11 release for the...

The 2014 New York Film Festival will host a series of special events, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced in a press release today. A number of films will make their U.S. premieres at the festival, in addition to an anniversary screening that will turn the whole festival up to 11. While dates have yet to be announced, This Is Spinal Tap will receive a 30th-anniversary screening. In 1984, Rob Reiner’s mockumentary satirized the lifestyle of rock musicians and has since been a staple of movie history.

Star and writer Christopher Guest will attend the screening, through no other members...

A significant mark in the history of animation, The King and the Mockingbird celebrates the 30th anniversary of its UK release with a fully restored theatrical release. Based on Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, Paul Grimault’s interpretation takes place in an obscure kingdom powered by strings and pulleys and reigned by a vicious and greedy king.

After a series of fantastical events, this pompous royal is overthrown by his portrait, whose sole mission is to steal the escaped portrait figure of a willowy shepherdess from a handsome chimney sweep whom she loves. It has all the makings of Christian Anderson’s tales; forbidden love, jealousy and trickery. After a lifesaving encounter the Chimney Sweep and the Shepherdess are helped in their escape by a self-assured Mocking Bird who frees the pair from the King’s clutches on several occasions, aiding them through the trap laden kingdom.

This beautiful reissued French animation draws on Fritz Lang and seems to prefigure the style of Japanese anime

Here is an animated gem from 1980, which draws on classic modes that came before it and anticipates the Japanese animation that followed. Jacques Prévert was working on its screenplay until virtually his dying day. The animator Paul Grimault was refining and wrangling over the movie, Le Roi et L'Oiseau, with producing partners for decades, following an argument over a early rough-cut showing in the early 50s. It is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep. A pompous King, puffed up with pure Bourbon vanity, rules over the fantasy kingdom of Takicardia, whose surreal vastness is enough to give anyone a heart disorder. He falls in love with the portrait of a shepherdess. However, this imaginary woman runs off with the equally imaginary chimney sweep in the neighbouring canvas,...

★★★★☆Marking the 30th anniversary of its UK debut, StudioCanal rereleases the highly influential The King and the Mockingbird (1980) in a fully restored version after a popular reissue in France last year, offering audiences both old and new the chance to experience a landmark work of sublime hand-drawn animation 28 years in the making. Long considered a masterpiece of the genre, the film is the product of a collaboration between filmmaker Paul Grimault and screenwriter Jacques Prévert who, together in 1947, began loosely adapting Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, though complications arose and an unfinished version was released without their approval.

TOKYO -- Famed around the world for its animated film, Japan's Studio Ghibli is branching out into distributing a range of foreign titles in the territory.

The producer behind such classics as "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke" -- both directed by Hayao Miyazaki -- has distributed two imported films in the past, but wants to give Japanese moviegoers even wider access to animated cinema.

"Both previous films proved very successful and it is clear that the approach worked and people want to see different stories and different styles," said Mikiko Takeda of Studio Ghibli's international division. "We believe we are The Only Ones who can introduce these movies to an audience."

The previous titles were "Kirikou and the Sorcerer", by Michel Ocelot, and Paul Grimault's "Le Roi et L'Oiseau".

The new project is being undertaken by the Ghibli Museum and will see the films screened at the Cinema Angelika in Tokyo's Shibuya district, Takeda said.

"To only have stills from these movies on display at the museum would not work as animation needs to be seen in that form for it to work," Takeda said.