The 60th anniversary of the Annecy festival has reserved a veritable firework display of surprises this year.
As the director of the festival Mickaël Marin indicated, this event which
"wiped the plaster"
of a face-to-face festival, was
"a successful combat edition.
For Annecy, it is an incredible week which is coming to an end, and which brought together more than 8,000 accredited persons on site for half of them or online. "
Read also: Annecy Festival:
The Crossing
of Florence Miailhe ignites the public
Despite a still unstable health situation, professionals from 96 countries and the local general public were able to celebrate a 60th anniversary, postponed for one year
. “Many times, we said to ourselves that we were going to have to switch this edition online
, remembers the director of the festival Mickaël Marin.
But we held, held, until the announcements of the President of the Republic. I have often said to my teams: "As long as the referee has not whistled the end of the match, we will continue to play." "
And Mickaël Marin added: “In the
end, keeping the festival on the calendar turned out to be a profitable tactic.
If we have experienced some of the hardest preparation in organizer memory, this week has in store for us the most beautiful of rewards.
To sum it up, if we cried a lot of despair during the preparation of the festival, this week, we cried a lot of happiness seeing the audience again in the hall, and witnessing so many outbursts of joy.
"
In
Flee,
Amin's character tells the story of his dramatic journey as a refugee child from Afghanistan to Denmark.
© Citia / Annecy Festival 2021
Grand winner of this festival, often described as historic, the film
Flee
by Jonas Poher Rasmussen won the Cristal du feature film, a deserved first prize (as well as the Gan Foundation prize for distribution).
The film tells the true story of the flight to the West of a young Afghan man, who has now become an academic in Denmark, where he is about to marry a man.
Already decked out with distinctions, (winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury at Sundance and voted best Nordic documentary in Göteborg),
Flee,
which can be translated as “Flee”, left its mark on Annecy viewers.
"What this list also shows
", notes Mickaël Marin.
"I think we'll hear from
Flee
in the coming months ..."
Mickaël Marin, director of the Annecy festival
The film crew confided on the stage of the Annecy festival when receiving their prize that they could just as easily have shot this film in live action, but that they chose to do it in animation
"to protect the hero of the film, who actually became a friend of the director.
And this even if the process was longer and cost more ... "" I think we will hear about Flee in the coming months,
estimates Mickaël Marin.
He will definitely be nominated for an
Oscar
.
I find it deserved. "
In Kabul in Afghanistan, a young woman of Czech origin decides to leave everything for love to follow the one who will become her husband.
She then becomes the witness and the actress of the upheavals that her new Afghan family experiences on a daily basis.
© Citia / Annecy Festival 2021
This year's Jury Prize was awarded to the first feature film
My Afghan Family
by Michaela Pavlátová.
A Franco-Czech co-production, the film features a young Czech woman who, after marrying an Afghan with whom she has fallen in love, tries to integrate into life in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Late addition to the main competition, this year,
La Traversée
by Florence Miailhe won the special mention of the Jury.
This first animated feature film entirely painted in oil on glass, tells the migratory odyssey of a sister and her little brother, Kyona and Adriel, as they try to flee a European country from the Is imaginary ...
Director Florence Miaihle took almost fourteen years to complete her first animated feature film
La Traversée
, which received the Mention of the Jury at the Annecy 2021 festival. © Citia / Festival d'Annecy 2021
It is quite rare that a theme stands out so clearly in the selection of a festival.
That of migration, in all its meanings, clearly dominates a majority of the films present and awarded at Annecy this year.
The main winners of this list have indeed looked into a subject whose hot topicality remains undeniable.
“I think that this year, the festival offers a beautiful, balanced prize list,
judges the director of the event.
And indeed, we strongly feel the theme of immigration.
But animated cinema has always been a reflection of the evils of our time.
It questions the world as powerfully as the cinema of reality.
"
Mickaël Marin: “
Today, our satisfaction is great because we have succeeded in ensuring that buyers from around sixty countries are present on the Mifa
market (international animated film market, editor's note)
.
»© Olivier Delcroix
The other lesson of this ranking shows how the feminization of the profession is gaining ground over the years.
"We observe that this year, two directors appear on the highest steps of the podium,"
notes the director of the festival.
On the one hand, there is the Czech director Michaela Pavlátová who signs
My Afghan Family
, and on the other Florence Miailhe who with
La Traversée
made a strong impression during the public screening. I think this is a good signal sent to the profession.
"
Even if the animation cinema has been impacted by the pandemic, the funding being even longer than usual, everyone knows that it is not an art of ease.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Annecy festival has experienced good growth over the past ten years, the objective of this edition was not to
"raise numbers, but to find us all at the heart of a project in common,
concludes Mickaël Marin.
Today, our satisfaction is great because we have succeeded in ensuring that buyers from around sixty countries are present on the Mifa
market (international animated film market, editor's note)
.
We conducted this festival with acceptable risk control.
And it paid off ... "
Can not wait for next year...
Complete winners of the Annecy 2021 animated film festival
Feature films :
Feature Film Crystal:
Flee
by Jonas Poher Rasmussen.
Jury Prize:
My Afghan Family
by Michaela Pavlátová.
Mention of the jury:
La Traversée
by Florence Miailhe.
Reverse
shot award:
Bob Cuspe, Nós não gostamos
by Cesar Cabral.
Mention of the jury:
Archipel
by Félix Dufour-Laperrière.
Short films
Short film crystal:
Bark
by Samuel Patthey and Silvain Monney.
Jury Prize:
Easter Eggs
by Nicolas Keppens.
“Jean-Luc Xiberras” Prize for the first work:
Hold Me Tight
by Mélanie Robert-Tourneur.
Jury Mention:
Art in the Blood
of Joanna Quinn.
Short films "Off-Limits":
Prize for the film “Off-Limits:
Tunable Mimoid
by Vladimir Todorovic.
