Annecy Festival Residency: The winning projects in 2025

Image

Father's Letters by Alexey EVTIGNEEV (Author and Director) and Dasha DOROFEEVA (Graphic Artist)

Father's Letters

Author/Director: Alexey EVSTIGNEEV (Russia) 
Graphic Artist: Dasha DOROFEEVA (Russia)  
Producers: Clémence CRÉPIN NEEL and Igor COURTECUISSE (moderato, France)
 
In 1934, Professor Vangengheim is arrested in Moscow and sent to the Gulag Archipelago of the Solovki Islands.
To protect his daughter, little Elya, from the reality of the regime and the Stalinist purges, he decides to let her believe, through his letters, that he has gone on an expedition.
But the journey drags on. As the months of captivity go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the illusion and preserve the magical world of childhood.

Image

Kigali Night by Samuel Lajus (Director/Co-Screenwriter), Xavier Coste (Artistic Director), Romy COCCIA DI FERRO (Co-Screenwriter) and Grégoire POLET (Early screenwriting assistance)

Kigali Night

Director/Co-screenwriter: Samuel LAJUS (France) 
Artistic Director: Xavier COSTE (France) 
Co-screenwriter: Romy COCCIA DI FERRO (Italy/Lebanon) 
Early screenwriting assistance: Grégoire POLET (Belgium) 
Producers: Jérôme DUC-MAUGE (Parmi Les Lucioles, France), Virginie CHAPELLE and Samuel TILMAN (Eklektik productions, Belgium)
 
Samuel is 23 when he arrives as an audiovisual presenter at the French Cultural Centre in Kigali. During the 18 months he spends in Rwanda, the warning signs multiply, but Samuel chooses to ignore them. Everything he is told seems impossible to him: his country, France, could not possibly support such a regime. But this climate does not stop him from enjoying the country and partying. Then gradually his convictions begin to falter.
This account takes place two years before the genocide, a time that is rarely, if ever, discussed. However, it is during this period that everything falls into place.

Image

Kolaval by Karla VELÁZQUEZ (Director and Cocreator) and Adrian SALDAÑA (Author and Co-Creator)

Kolaval 

Director/Co-creator: Karla VELÁZQUEZ (Mexico)
Author/Co-creator: Adrian SALDAÑA (Mexico) 
Producers: Julián SÁNCHEZ, Cristina CUEVAS, Nidia SANTIAGO and Edwina LIARD (Ikki Films, France)

In a small village, as the only hope to stop a violent invasion in her village, a 12-year-old warrior born into a family of embroiderers will be forced to marry.
But, believing in the legends her grandmother tells, she decides to run away and venture into an ancestral forest where she finds more than she expected: an ancient goddess' secret power that she uses to unravel the disaster threatening her village and weave a better life.