Annecy 2009, June 8 through 13th, was its usual mixed bag. On the plus side there were lots of old and new friends to see and some fantastic special screenings. On the other hand, the majority of the short films in competition were mediocre. Since networking and doing business has become one of the major purposes of the festival, it was definitely a success in that department.

Monday morning the festival started off on a high note for me with A Thorn in the Mind. Mathieu Bergeron and Yves Martel's fascinating documentary gives us a touching and incisive look into the creative imaginations of six prominent animators from around the world: Jacques Drouin from Canada, Great Britain's Barry Purves, Pjotr Sapegin of Russia, Swiss animator Georges Schwizgebel and Raoul Servais of Belgium. One of the most touching moments in the film was Georges talking about how satisfied he is with his life and his work. His face beaming down at the audience was the very picture of a life well spent.

I alternately laughed and cried as I watched The Boys, another documentary. You may not know the names Robert and Richard Sherman but you certainly know their music. Their combined musical genius earned each of them two Oscars for Mary Poppins, one for Best Musical Score and another for Best Song, "Chim Chim Cher-ee," as well as giving us the longest word in the English language, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The rise of their careers at Disney Studio, where Walt called them simply "the boys," their legendary craft and their eventual estrangement from each other is told in interviews and film footage with family members, Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke who worked with them on Mary Poppins, Roy Disney and many others who knew and worked with them.

Most important and moving of all was the commentary from Bob and Dick themselves. Their sons, Jeffrey C. Sherman and Gregory V. Sherman, who wrote, directed and produced the film, brought the estranged brothers together for the first time in years to give us a touching glimpse into a past that lives on with their music in films that have delighted generations of adults and their parents.

Monday evening brought us to the official opening ceremony and screening. The first surprise in store was provided by Pixar with a screening of their delightful new short Partly Cloudy. Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where does the stork get the babies from? Animator and story board artist Peter Sohn answers this question in his directorial debut.

The opening night centerpiece, A Town Called Panic, began life as a cult favorite series of five-minute episodes featuring toy plastic action figures. In their first feature-length film, Belgian animators Vincent Patar and Stephane Aubier tell a tale of their classic characters of Cowboy and Indian wanting to give Horse a birthday present. Of course, soon it all dissolves into chaos. The stop-motion animation utilizes the plastic miniatures of our childhood which they have remolded and reformed into all sorts of bizarre positions to create a hilarious animated film. The hundreds of figures and sets that Patar and Aubier have created were on display upstairs at the Bonleiu Center.