Annecy Festival Residency: The 2025 Mentors
A "tailor-made" mentorship jointly developed with the projects' teams. Providing guidance is a major focus of the Annecy Festival Residency since its conception.
The purpose of mentoring, which takes the form of a diagnosis and overview of the work, is to help authors with their artistic approach, whether in terms of writing or graphic development, both of which are inextricably connected. Mentors are chosen by mutual agreement, based on the project's style and needs identified during the Residency.
The initial stage of the process provides an opportunity to take a step back from the film's storyline and reflect on the film's visual development. It is a kind of checkpoint for the authors to reflect on and confirm the elements that are ready to be explored graphically. This mentoring takes place remotely before the artists arrive in Annecy.
The second stage of assistance is key. This is a real catalyst that boosts the creative process and encourages the authors to think carefully about their directing, explore new possibilities, challenge their limits and allow themselves this precious phase of experimentation that is invaluable in animation. This can involve anything from simple graphic research to developing a storyboard, even producing an animatic or several animation tests.
Check out the mentors who will be assisting the authors during this Residency.
"Father's Letters" Mentors
Reza RIAHI
Director and Art Director, assisting the project Father's Letters
Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reza Riahi is a director and art director specialising in animation. He has directed several animation short films, especially for ARTE, France 3 and TED-Ed. He was art director and graphic designer on Nora Twomey's The Breadwinner (2017), which was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and an Annie Award, and won an award at Annecy. His short film Navozande, The Musician (2020) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was shortlisted for the 2022 Oscars and screened at over 80 festivals around the world. Riahi is currently developing the short film Assou, Song of the Valley and a multimedia project inspired by Attar's The Conference of the Birds. He also shares his experience in animation by giving talks at schools such as GOBELINS Paris and at the Campus Mifa.
Sébastien TAVEL
Actor, Director and Screenwriter, assisting the project Father's Letters
Sébastien Tavel has acted on stage under the direction of Georges Lavaudant and Antoine Vitez as well as in film with Philippe Harel, Georges Lautner, Mathieu Kassovitz, Park Kwang-Su, Olivier Dahan, and Marie Garel-Weiss.
However, he decided to write and make films. His first short film Harry et Co won the CNC award for quality.
The animation feature film, The Swallows of Kabul, was released on 4th September 2019. Sébastien co-wrote the screenplay with Patricia Mortagne and Zabou Breitman; the film was selected at Cannes "Un certain regard", at Annecy, and received the Valois de diamant at Angoulême. Alongside the feature film project Zélie et ses deux orangs-outans, prizewinner of the La Scénaristerie workshop, Sébastien is also developing a live-action feature film, Quand mon cœur fait boum, selected for the Moulin d'Andé-CÉCI annual residency.
In November 2024, the Manm'zel New-York series, co-written with Mariette Monpierre and nominated for a FESPACO 2025 award, was broadcast on France TV Outre-Mer division.
Sébastien regularly works as a consultant as well as lecturing at GOBELINS Paris.
Alain GAGNOL
Screenwriter, Director and Author, assisting the project Kigali Night
Alain Gagnol was born in 1967 in Roanne. He studied animation, illustration and comic-strip art at the École Émile Cohl, then joined Folimage as an animator. In 1996, he directed a short film with Jean-Loup Felicioli, L'Égoïste, a collaboration renewed on several occasions (Les Tragédies minuscules, TV series in 1999, followed by five other short films). Their first feature film, A Cat in Paris, was nominated at the 2012 Oscars. Two other feature films followed: Phantom Boy (2015) and Nina and the Hedgehog's Secret (2023).
He is also author of several crime novels published by Série noire, Le Cherche midi and Le Passeur Éditeur. Since 2017, his children's novels have been published at Syros publishers: the trilogy Power Club (2017-2018) and Même les araignées ont une maman (2020). A futuristic novel, Célèbre à en mourir, will be released soon by Syros.
Jules BONNASSIEUX
Illustrator and Animator, assisting the project Kigali Night
Jules Bonnassieux has overflowed with curiosity since he was a child, taking an interest in and experimenting with all forms of art, especially graphics. Therefore, quite naturally he enrolled at the École Émile Cohl, where he perfected his drawing skills. He developed an appetite for filmmaking and made two short films in his first year on the Master’s program. In his final year, he directed Matanza, a short film about life and death through a bullfighting theme. He combined strong black-and-white graphics with a challenging medium: charcoal. Bonnassieux constantly questions his work and the world around him, feeding his curiosity and creativity every single day.
Anita DORON
Screenwriter and Director, assisting the project Kolaval
Born into a family of mountaineering engineers in Transcarpathia, Anita Doron is a Hungarian-Canadian writer and director. Her films have been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. The Lesser Blessed, which she wrote and directed, was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Anita wrote the screenplay for the Oscar – and Golden Globe – nominated The Breadwinner, which won a Canadian Screen Award and was nominated for an Annie Award and a Humanitas Prize for her work on the film.
Anita is a Senior TED Fellow, an initiative that brings together international visionaries to collaborate across disciplines to create positive change in the world.
Aurélien PREDAL
Production Designer, Visual Development Artist and Character Designer, assisting the project Kolaval
Aurélien Predal is a production designer, visual development artist and character designer with 19 years' experience in the animation industry. He graduated from GOBELINS Paris in 2006 with the short film Burning Safari, and has since collaborated with studios such as Aardman Animations, Pixar Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, DreamWorks, LAIKA and Illumination among others. He production-designed/art-directed the feature film Mune: Gardian of the Moon, the Aardman and Lucasfilm Star Wars: Visions short I Am Your Mother and more recently the mini-series Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight for Netflix. As a visual development artist, he collaborated on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Inside Out 2, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and the Hotel Transylvania and Despicable Me franchises.
He currently lives in Bristol, UK, surrounded by exotic plants and a giant cat.