Isn’t Annecy a beautiful place to spend a week watching animation? All images courtesy of Sarah Baisley.

What a difference a year can make. As I offer up my sophomoric observations and impressions about the much-improved Annecy, bear in mind this is only the second time this editor has attended the world’s oldest and most important animation festival, which was held June 6-11, 2005, in Annecy, France. For a more experienced account, please check out the story written by my colleague, Philippe Moins.

It looked as though the organizers had taken to heart my few criticisms, offered constructively by a seasoned festival/market veteran finding a few spoiled fruits amongst the stunning display of this international fair that growers and shoppers of animation flock to in an idyllic setting.

Gone were the long, hot lines of people waiting to get their screening tickets. This year, the organizers instituted a computerized ticket system, in which one could pre-order their picks. That worked for the most part if you actually did it and had received your security information to access the system on the Internet. Those who did not were at the mercy of computer terminals at the Bonlieu, where people encountered long lines, programming and human errors, system crashes and a limit of two choices a day. There was bound to be some problems given this was the inaugural year for a new system. It was a great relief for many.

Many new features were added to accommodate those attending the MIFA, the business market held concurrently with the festival, at the Imperial Palace Hotel. A new air duct system had been added to the often stifling tent for exhibitors, a series of big plastic channels that would suddenly inflate overhead with a rush of air shot through them. A big mixing lounge with better food was added at the end of tent, which spilled on to the landscaped grounds of the hotel where some tried to catch a few rays of sunshine. This was a much cooler festival and market, interrupted occasionally by brief showers and breezy, cold nights.

Shots from MIFA.

Buyers were also given a special screening lounge where they could check out DVDs from the market library and watch them unacosted in the viewing booths, much like they get to do at MIPCOM Jr. Just off the screening area was another terrace for meetings, which few availed themselves of, but was a quiet, uncrowded area to talk quietly or escape the see-and-be-seen scene in the cocktail lounge below. The bar and terrace of the Imperial Palace was officially declared a MIFA meeting area, requiring a participant’s badge for entrance, when many had used it in the past markets to arrange meetings without having to pay for registration or day-passes.

The MIFA crew had spent a great deal of time recruiting new exhibitors and participants, especially from the Pan-Pacific region. Their frequent complaint was about the lack of buyers coming through the exhibit area and a way to reach them. The guide listed those who registered, but without any contact information. Boxes are provided for participants, so exhibitors who did not have contact information for these people resorted to leaving messages in the boxes and cruising the bar and meetings to check out badges.

This year the protest, of sorts, came from within the festival, while last year the MIFA was shut-down for a while when utilities workers in France staged a targeted protest that cut the power to the exhibits while a French official was touring the market. A small but congenial band of animators, disappointed about having their films rejected from competition organized their own, “Annecy plus,” a Friday night showing of their films in a back alley of taverns.