When I first learned that the 2008 Annecy Festival of Animation (June 9-14 in Annecy, France) was spotlighting feature films I was quite apprehensive. An animated feature has to be really good to make me want to stay in my seat for an hour and a half without falling asleep or wishing that it was over, but I was in for a pleasant surprise at the festival this year. Of 40 features submitted to the selection committee, nine were placed in competition, 12 screened out of competition, and three were shown as special premieres. It was a fine selection and the subject matter and styles were so varied that there was something to please everyone.

Nina Paley's brilliant musical adaptation of the Indian epic Ramayana, Sita Sings the Blues, was an instant crowd pleaser. Drawing the film together with songs from the 1920s songstress Annette Hanshaw, including the poignant Mean to Me, Nina tells the legend of the Indian god Rama from the point of view of his wife Sita. Nina also weaves her own personal story of her husband's mid-life crisis and subsequent dumping of her via email throughout what she refers to as "the greatest break-up story ever told."

As in Indian Bollywood films, there is an "intermission" with music in this wonderful film, and my husband Nik was very pleased to continue his long-running collaboration with Nina by creating the music for this special segment of her film. Unfortunately, despite winning numerous awards at festivals, Nina has not yet found a distributor for her film, so the only place that you can see Sita is at festivals. Let's hope that this situation is remedied soon so that everyone, especially in the United States where there are very few animation festivals, will be able to enjoy this masterpiece of independent filmmaking.

Bill Plympton's Idiots and Angels, a dark comedy about a man's battle for his soul, was a welcome treat. The film is very monochromatic with a dark surreal Eastern European look. I like his use of only music and sound effects, no dialogue, to give the film an almost operatic feeling, and the choice of such musicians as Moby, Tom Waits and Pink Martini added an elevated dimension to the story. This film establishes Bill as a master of the independent feature, as well as king of short films. Bill pulled off a great coup by having both his feature film and his short film Hot Dog, the third film in a series about an eager but inept dog (that Bill calls his Mickey Mouse) in the juried competition.

I first wrote about Nocturna when I saw it at Anima Brussels last February. This debut film by young Spanish animators Adria Garcia and Victor Maldonado is the tale of a young orphan whose fear of the dark gives birth to a monster that is bent on wiping out all sources of light in the night sky. This charming film combines a soft background reminiscent of The Triplets of Belleville with Japanese-style anima characters to create a film that I have enjoyed watching repeatedly.