This 14-18 programme came about through the common desire of three animation festivals, Anima Brussels, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Trickfilm Festival Stuttgart, to commemorate, each in their own fashion, the victims of this war.
2014 marks the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War. Several films have been produced for the occasion, including the hybrid Le Soldat méconnu by Jérémie Malavoy whose animated sequences were entrusted to Ugo Bienvenu and Kevin Manach, who had their short film Maman in competition here last year. We are pleased to present you with a sneak preview of this film that retells the tragic fate of Augustin Trébuchon, the last Frenchmen killed in the conflict. We are also very proud to be able to show you the latest work from such directors as Marc James Roels and Emma de Swaef or Wendy Morris and Michael Palmers.
Added to these new films are a number of remarkable works, like Augusto Zanovello's Lettres de femmes, winner of the Audience Award at Annecy 2013, War Game by Dave Unwin, special TV winner at Annecy 2001, and Bruno Collet's Le Jour de gloire... in competition in 2007.
For the most part, these directors have chosen to narrate the hell on the western front: the horror of the trenches, the mud, the unbearable conditions of a war of position, etc. The origin of the films and filmmakers (most of them are French or Belgian) probably explains the predominance of this point of view, Wendy Morris being the only one to evoke the colonial front.
MARCEL JEAN
CITIA