Nora Twomey’s Oscar-nominated The Breadwinner and Cam Christiansen’s NFB documentary Wall are the two Canadian features in competition at this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market.
Taking place between June 11 and 16, 2018 in Annecy, France, the festival’s market component, MIFA, goes from June 12 to 15. And Canada will be there with bells on for the third time. The 13 Canadian projects being presented at this year’s festival also include five shorts and three virtual reality projects: Chris Lavis’ and Maciek Szczerbowski’s Gymnasia, Isle of Dogs Behind the Scenes in Virtual Reality (a Canada, USA, and UK coproduction from Foxnext VR Studios, Felix & Paul Studios, Google Spotlight Stories, and the Isle of Dogs Production Team), and Paloma Dawkins’ Museum of Symmetry.
We’ll also have a fully-loaded Canada Pavilion, with about 40 companies participating, and lots of networking events we can’t wait to tell you all about. Plus, a little Canadian pride goes to the Quebec artist Pascal Blanchet, who designed the Annecy festival’s official poster this year!
But first, let’s spotlight the two animated features in official competition:
The Breadwinner is a coproduction between Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg whose many award nominations include: Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars; Best Motion Picture – Animated at the Golden Globes, and six Canadian Screen Awards! (It took home four Canadian Screen Awards, including best Adapted Screenplay.) Directed by Nora Twomey and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, the film is about Parvana, a young girl in Afghanistan who takes on the responsibility of helping support her family after her dad is arrested by the Taliban, and to be able to work, she must therefore dress up as a boy. The Breadwinner was penned by two Canadian women, Anita Doron and Deborah Ellis (Ellis wrote the young adult novel on which the film is based).
Wall, directed by Cam Christiansen, is an NFB project that features the famous UK playwright and screenwriter David Hare, who also wrote Wall, as he journeys to the Middle East and the wall that separates Israel and Palestine.
Our short films at Annecy include Alison Snowden and David Fine’s Animal Behaviour (Zoothérapie), Michael Enzbrunner’s Death Van, Justine Vuylsteker’s Embraced (Étreintes) (coproduced with France), Elizabeth Hobbs’ I’m OK (coproduced with the UK), and Patrick Bouchard’s The Subject (Le Sujet). (And not to toot our own horn yet again, but let’s not forget that Le Sujet was also selected for the Directors’ Fortnight section at Cannes 2018!)
As for our Canada Pavilion, get ready for a networking reception, a networking session with French broadcasters, an industry matchmaking with Brazil, as well as a very exciting roster of Canadian speakers. Psst – see the full programming here.
