ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.04 - JULY 2000

The Annecy Story: 40 Years of Celebrating the Art of Animation
(continued from page 1)

Hollywood-based Bill Littlejohn attended Annecy for the first time in 1963, after John Hubley strongly advised him to do so. Bill recalls the festival opened him up to European and Russian animation, so different from that of the Hollywood studios. It also inspired the creation of The International Tournée of Animation, which started in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, initiated by Bill Littlejohn, Lester Goldman and Ward Kimball among others. Later on, a touring program evolved into the current World Animation Celebration.

In Annecy, animators could meet each other in a relaxed atmosphere over a glass of beer in a street café and many fell in love with the town and its lake. There was only one venue -- the charming, old, red and gold Casino-Theater by the lake. The Casino administrators had been favorable to the transfer of the JICA from Cannes and even put some money into the event. As a cultural organization, part of the Casino-Theater’s mandate was to present theatrical performances and other cultural events, as well as films. Hosting a festival seemed to be a compromise solution for this programming constraint. They were also eager to welcome the glamorous crowd from Cannes. They quickly became disillusioned when they discovered the actual animation crowd -- 'bums' who loitered on the Casino stairs, drinking only sodas and scaring the regular clientele.

The Breakdown In 1982
As mentioned before, the festival was organized from an office in Paris, with festival director Pierre Barbin, in a joint effort with the Annecy Ciné-Club led by Henry Moret, Georges Gondran, Georges Granchamps and Claudette Dagand. The event was attracting between 300-400 film professionals every other year, which was an enormous figure for animation at the time. The programming was composed of one competition screening per day, complemented by a few retrospectives and one exhibition. Over the years, Annecy carved out a special niche for itself as a haven for personal animation, which were invariably short films. However, in 1982, the festival board decided to change things. Pierre Jacquier, the president of the festival board at the time said: "The festival was running very smoothly but we were going round in circles. It was becoming a kind of stopgap or refuge for personal animation films and rather academic. It was missing out on the new developments in animation and new types of cinematography." Not everyone agreed with festival director Raymond Maillet who had succeeded Pierre Barbin in 1971. Annecy insiders blamed him for doing the job alone (Maillet was pre-selecting the films in Paris together with only a few other professionals). His attitude toward the Annecy locals was perceived as patronizing. Also, the festival was very academic with a leaning toward classic animation. Experimental films, like those from Cal Arts, and didactic and good natured films like Frédéric Back’s, were looked at scornfully. This growing discontent coincided with conflicts between Maillet and ASIFA as well as the development of the local cultural associations that were involved in the festival organization. Supported by ASIFA, the festival decided to move operations from Paris to Annecy. This decision was not to everybody’s liking and the animation community in France became deeply divided. Raymond Maillet, supported by some key professionals, fought against the decision. Annecy was accused of being a reactionary small town trying to appropriate the festival. The CNC came out in favor of the Annecy board, and, in 1982, the organizational headquarters were switched from Paris to Annecy. Raymond Maillet, as well as a significant number of professionals, broke off communication with the festival. Later on, Raymond Maillet founded the Festival National du Film d'Animation (National Animation Festival) in Paris’ Marly-Le-Roi. (In 1999, for its 12th edition, Marly-Le-Roi moved to Auch in Central France.)

The Next Step for the Festival
The new organizers were driven by a huge, democratic fervor. Yet, they had to mobilize their allies in order to organize the upcoming edition of the festival. Nicole Salomon lobbied ASIFA. Zagreb brought significant support. The new festival director, Jean-Luc Xiberras, was able to take full advantage of the facilities offered by the brand new Bonlieu Cultural Center, which replaced the old Casino-Theater as the festival’s new official venue. He decided to increase the number of movie theaters and use the cultural facilities available in Annecy to full capacity. In 1983, films were shown in six different cinemas and the number of competition screenings was increased threefold. The festival also added to the number of tributes, retrospectives and exhibitions. The response was positive. The number of professionals attending Annecy ‘83 shot up to 1,300. Huguette Parent, from the National Film Board of Canada, commented that, "Annecy gave new standards to festivals."

The next step was the integration of all animation techniques -- including the much maligned new technologies -- into the competition segment. In 1985, TV series, advertising and commissioned film categories were added to the competition. This, in turn, highlighted the need to set up different selection committees for different genres (one committee for shorts and features, one for TV and commissioned film). In 1993, the festival set up two different international juries, with separate prizes for specific genres but only one Grand Prix. This worked well in 1993, but in 1995 the festival ended up with two joint-winners and one jury was pitted against the other. As a result, the festival modified the rules of the 1997 festival to make sure that each genre would have its own Grand Prix and other awards. The student and graduation film prize was created in 1995. The prize for a first film was renamed the "Jean-Luc Xiberras Award" in 1999 as a tribute to Jean-Luc Xiberras, who passed away late 1998.

Paradoxically, until recent years, the festival was not popular with the Annecy inhabitants, and was more famous in the international animation community than in its own town. In 1993, the festival installed a giant lake-side, outdoor screen, with free screenings every night. It provided a magic moment for its opening with the screening of Fantasia. The event sparked considerable interest and thousands of spectators gathered every night to see the programs. These screenings brought an unprecedented awareness of the festival with the locals.

With a six-day format of competition screenings, retrospectives, tributes and exhibitions -- including some programs from relatively little known areas of the world such as Albania, India, China, Latin America and South Africa -- Annecy is truly an animation fiesta. Obviously, some people think that there is simply too much going on and feel frustrated at not being able to attend all of the screenings, retrospectives and exhibitions. However, this was the conscious decision of director Jean-Luc Xiberras. He felt that Annecy’s public was as diverse as animation itself and needed as wide a range of film programming as possible. He also believed, rightly or wrongly, that there should be an abundance of films and that frustration was part of the "game."

A Specialized Market
Following Pierre Jacquier and Nicole Salomon's idea, the new board also began to work on the idea of a film market. They had come to the conclusion that films would come to Annecy provided the venue gave them a chance to be distributed. In 1983, the festival tried out a prototype film market in the exhibition hall next to the Bonlieu Theater. It was pretty much an improvised and informal fair, with trestle tables and a few companies selling animation materials (basically pens and gouache), together with a few valiant producers who wanted to meet the filmmakers. However, it enabled them to create the first MIFA (Marché International du Film d’Animation) market in 1985 with real booths in a 500 square meter exhibition area. Exhibitors were mainly from France, with a few from the rest of Europe. There were very few television producers present. Thanks to the French Ministry of Culture, which in 1985 set up the Image Plan to promote the animation industry and supported the MIFA, the latter enjoyed new growth. The European animation industry also developed thanks to the formation, in the late 1980s, of the AEFA Cartoon (a program of the European Union), a vital complement to industry events such as MIFA. In 1989, the MIFA moved to a 2,000 square meter tent set up in a park in front of the lake, before finding its current home in the Imperial Palace Conference Center in 1991. In 1995, the tent was expanded to 3,000 square meters to meet the growing demand from the US majors -- at this point the market was booming and many studios were recruiting. Since then, the market has stabilized at 3,500 square meters. In 1999, the MIFA welcomed 600 companies.

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