The beauty of the Annecy festival. All photos courtesy of Sarah Baisley.

It took more than 25 years working in the animation industry to at last make the pilgrimage to Annecy, the premiere international animated film festival, held June 7-12, 2004, in an idyllic location on a lake overlooking the French Alps near the Swiss border. The 28^th edition of festival and the 14^th MIFA, the business market, delivered on most of my expectations.

The town of Annecy is beautiful, sitting on the lake with its picturesque old town and water canals. Vivid tulips and many other gorgeous flowers were blooming quite late into the season and the sky was a warm, bright blue, broken occasionally by passing light rains. The food is delectably good and reasonably priced pretty much everywhere. The three-times-a-week farmers market and swap meet vendors present a feast for the eyes and there is loads of shopping at boutiques and quaint stores to occupy family and friends that may have accompanied you on the "business" trip that you need to make time for between the busy schedule of screenings, lectures and panels featuring legendary animators and exciting new developments.

The festival itself is fairly easy to navigate through registration and locating the many activities it offers. People can congregate easily at the outdoor cafes of the Bonlieu center and nearby restaurants. Business people can mingle well in the market tent and lounge and salons of the Imperial Palace across the lake. Students enjoy a free massive peoples' party nightly in the park in the open air venue across from the center, featuring a gigantic theater screen projecting animation and rock to live groups as well as piped out music. There is an unbelievably high attendance of other animation festival directors, busy scouting for talent and films to bring to their venues.

C'est manifique, non?

The lines just show the popularity of the event.

The festival attracts hoards of people, and while registration is proficient, attendees stand in unbearably long lines to get their tickets to screenings. Some mornings the lines spill outside the center. Then there is the long wait to get into screenings at the center made so uncomfortable by the lack of air conditioning or fans inside. It was even worse inside the theater. I come from a hot climate (it's been averaging 104 Fahrenheit in Los Angeles this past week as I write this), but it was miserable during the packed screenings as people dripped perspiration on their seatmates. Sure it was lovely outside, but the stuffiness and lack of air in the dark made more people dose off than adjusting to jetlag or hangovers from partying.

It was surprising to a newcomer to see the audience flinging paper airplanes down at the stage at the start of each screening. Some snatched them to fan themselves with in the heat. Also, unique to this festival, the students work up a chant to the Annecy mascot/theme film for an interactive experience much like fans who shout responses during a Rocky Horror film screening. While some of the "older" attendees (I find I've been relegated to now) did not enjoy this discharge of raw energy, I found it actually buoyed and woke me up as I marveled how they could rev themselves up in the stupefying heat. The cleverly designed trailer, featuring rabbits and a carrot, was produced by Bestiol Animation, which was also responsible for the design and production of the festival poster, programs, informational publications and press materials.

A tip to beat the long lines. Go up to the MIFA registration tent or the desk at the Imperial where people easily picked up their passes. The press gets its own table, which is super accommodating as well as the nice pressroom, equipped with many computers (but it's so hard to type accurately on a French keyboard when are used to the other). A suggestion for organizers… It might be a good idea to make the pressroom available the night of the awards so reporters can dispatch who the winners are, the most important news to emanate from the festival.