2020 Archives
Index
2020 will remain an unprecedented year as the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Mifa was held exclusively online due to the pandemic.
Festival and Mifa Online (15th to 30th June 2020)
The 2020 edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and its Market will go down in history. In the full throes of the Covid-19 pandemic the Festival and Mifa organisation’s team had to take the decision to cancel the on-site event.
However, in order to support animation professionals and also satisfy movie-buffs and the general public, a digital version was pulled together in merely a few months. Therefore, the Annecy Festival, and the Mifa, could open their virtual doors on Monday 15th June 2020, for 15 full days and in completely new and adapted formats: Annecy Online and the Mifa Online.
The 2020 Edition in Figures
The figures confirm the historic nature of this edition, in the end there were 15,570 accreditations (a record), of which included 4,130 from the Mifa and 335 from journalists. Participants who connected to this online version attended from 111 different countries.
40 Mifa events and 30 Festival events were organised, with over 27 live broadcasts. For the Festival, the Annecy Online platform launched especially for the occasion hosted the 2020 Official Selection, with additional bonuses, 451 videos were available, representing 80 hours of unique content.
At the Mifa Online, 1,120 works had been made available by professionals in the Video Library, 2,074 virtual stands saw the light of day and more than 37,000 messages were exchanged via the Annecy Network.
Social networks weren’t left out with a massive increase in the number of subscribers, ending up with more than 64,700 YouTube subscribers, 54,000 Facebook subscribers, 37,650 Twitter subscribers and 21,800 Instagram subscribers at the end of the event. More than 250 videos were uploaded onto the Festival channel and they attracted 4,000 viewing hours (or 167 days)!
The Annecy Online International Animation Film Festival (15th to 30th June 2020)
If it wasn’t possible to set up the on-site Annecy Festival, it was imperative to still have the Official Selection to support the animation sector in these exceptional circumstances.
Therefore, among more than 3,000 films submitted to take part in the Official Selection, 20 Feature Films were chosen for competition, 79 Short Films, 44 Graduation Films, 21 TV Films, 35 Commissioned Films and 7 VR Works. All these works were accessible (the feature films were either in their totality or extracts) on the Annecy Online platform for 15 days viewing.
Along with the films was a whole range of Meetings including the Work in Progress, Masterclasses, Making of and Previews, to discover exclusive upcoming projects in the animation sector. The Cartes blanches were also proposed to the Festival partners to present their latest animated creations.
Juries were formed for this Annecy Online edition and they awarded 21 official prizes. The Festival also kept the tradition of the Awards Ceremony, virtually, to be watched over and over!
The Feature Film categories included the Official, Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary by Rémi Chayé that won the Cristal, The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks by Andrey Khrzhanovsky, Jury Award, and Kill It and Leave this Town by Mariusz Wilczynski, Jury Distinction. In the Contrechamp category, My Favorite War by Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen won the Contrechamp Award and The Shaman Sorceress by Jae-huun Ahn, Contrechamp Jury Distinction.
In the Short Films, Théodore Ushev received the Cristal for The Physics of Sorrow and Alberto Vázquez, Jury Award for Homeless Home.
The Cristal for Best VR Work was awarded to Minimum Mass by Raqi Syed and Areito Echevarria and a Special Jury Distinction was given to Battlescar – Punk Was Invented by Girls by Martin Allais and Nicolas Casavecchia.
Find the full list of the 2020 Annecy Festival’s Official Prizes and Special Prizes on our Winners List page.
If the invited guests weren’t able to come to the Festival in Annecy this year they nevertheless wanted to share their personal messages to festivalgoers, which included, Wes Anderson, Alexandra Lamy, Salomé Boulven and the team from Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary who came received their Cristal in person.
Find a lot more content linked to the 2020 edition on the Festival's YouTube channel, as well as the GOBELINS, the École de l’image credits, short films from the Official Selection, Shorts Interviews from directors in competition, and more.
The team is looking forward to seeing you for the next edition that will be held from 14th to 19th June 2021 and will allow us to celebrate the Annecy International Animation Film Festival’s 60th anniversary, as well as paying tribute to African animation for the Institut français’s Africa2020 Season. Two events that were initially planned for 2020 that we had to postpone.
The Annecy Online International Animation Film Market (15th to 30th June 2020)
Discussions, discoveries, meetings, networking, negotiations and purchases are all the Annecy Online International Animation Film Market 2020 edition’s key words. It seemed indispensable to support professionals across the world and to contribute to the sector’s prosperity by offering an online edition with a wealth of content and meetings.
The Mifa Online 2020 has therefore worked on new connected tools adapted to the situation to develop virtual stands via the Annecy Network to discover international professionals, offer Mifa Pitch sessions online and define a Awards List, to organise meetings with buyers during the Share With, discuss with students and young talents during the ifa Campus, provide visibility for works via the Video Library and to keep the Meet the, Industry Territory Focus, Mifa Special Events and Mifa Press Conferences.
Something that seduced professionals who were present in great numbers and that provided the possibility of keeping the activity and discussions that are usually at Annecy, during this unmissable meeting place for all animation professionals that is the Mifa.
The Annecy International Animation Film Market also looks forward to seeing you in 2021, from 15th to 18th June.
The Team
For the normal editions, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Market are used to filling out their teams to ensure the best welcome to the many badgeholders and to provide the best possible service.
This year, due to the international situation, only the permanent CITIA team, the event’s organisational structure, developed this online edition, and all that through distance working.
You can find the list of the Annecy Festival 2020 team online here.