| The International Animated Film Festival (JICA) was first created on the shores of the Mediterranean 40 years ago as a non-competitive section of the well known Cannes film festival. As FranÁois Truffaut wrote in Arts -Spectacle ´ The most important event of the Festival was the International Animated Film Encounters which brought together Stephen Bosustow, Jiri Trnka, Henri Gruel, Paul Grimault et Alexandre AlexeÔeff and enabled them to discuss their conception of artª. |
| In 1960 the JICA found a permanent home on Lake Annecy thanks to the efforts of the Annecy Film Club with its 5,000 members, new wave film-makers such as Chabrol and Godard, and the assistance of the Mayor of the city, Mr Charles Bosson.
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Cannes 1958 de gauche ý droite: Norman Mc Laren, Joy Batchelor, paul grimault et John Halas
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The Annecy Festival was the first competitive event entirely devoted to the art of animation and placed under the aegis of grand masters sush as John Halas, John Hubley, Walerian Borowczyk, Paul Grimault, Stephen Bosustow, Norman McLaren, Alexandre AlexeÔeff, Claire Parker, Ivan Ivanov-Vano...
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Le lion et la chanson de/by Bretislav Pojar - TchÈcoslovaquie -Grand prix 1960 © Kratky Film
| The first Annecy Grand Prix was awarded to Bretislav Pojar for his highly poetic work ´ The lion and the Song ª. |
| The Annecy Festival is a biennal event. It has inspired other festivals throughout the world e.g. MamaÔa (Romania), Zagreb (Croatia), Ottawa (Canada), Varna (Bulgaria), Hiroshima (Japan), ShanghaÔ (China) and a host of other events that celebrate a creative discipline that, nowadays, is at the crossroads of all techniques and arts.
The Festival is a bedrock for animation. In 1962 it saw the creation of the first International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) whose aim is to defend and promote the art of animation. It also played host to the 1988 constitutive General Assembly of the European Animated Film Association CARTOON, which seeks to develop and provide support for the European animated film industry. |
| Up into the 1970s the Festival played a major role in bringing together film makers from all over the world to view and discover precious short films that were unable to find the outlets that they deserved.
From the early 1980s onwards the Annecy festival took off in a new direction by extending the competition to include an entire range of new techniques such as computer assisited animation and all genres such as TV productions (then in their early days). Pour aider les oeuvres d'animation ý trouver leur public, le Festival a inventÈ en 1985, le premier MarchÈ consacrÈ au CinÈma d'Animation (MIFA) accompagnant ainsi le dÈveloppement industriel du CinÈma d'Animation EuropÈen. In 1985 the Festival invented the International Animated Film Market (the premier event of its kind) to help film works to reach an audience and reflect the development of the European animation industry. Nowadays the Annecy Festival attracts 5,000 film professionals from 70 countries, and 350 journalists. As its previous edition (1995) 1,236 films and audio-visual programmes were submitted for selection. The Festival also organizes a large number of tributes, retrospectives and exhibitions on original film-makers and countries whose production is still unknow or relatively under developed. |
Nag Ansorge ý l'exposition GisËle et Nag Ansorge / at the exhibition Nag and GisËle Ansorge - Annecy 1995
