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Annecy Festival Residency

Annecy Festival Residency
  1. The Residency
  2. The 2024 winning projects
  3. The 2024 winning writers
  4. The Residency's Partners
  5. The 2023 Residency archives

In June 2020 CITIA launched the arts residency "Graphic development for animation feature film" to assist creation.

Discover the new winning writers and their projects selected to join the Annecy Festival Residency 2024.

Download the "Annecy Festival Residency" brochure!

Any questions? Download our FAQs.

 

The Residency

With backing from the Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Département de la Haute-Savoie, Drac, CNC and Netflix, CITIA, the organisers of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Mifa, wanted to continue supporting animation feature film writers by giving them the time and a place to create, to network, to provide increased visibility, and continuous project support.

The Annecy Festival Residency provides a tailor-made offer to each of the selected projects, in an inspiring and stimulating ecosystem, as well as connecting with esteemed mentors in the animation sector.

The 2024 call for projects

Here’s a few key figures, the 2024 edition of the Annecy Festival Residency includes:

  • 36 submissions
  • 25 different nationalities
  • 42% of the projects are led by women

The selection committee had the delicate task of putting together an eclectic and equitable selection from these submissions. The goal was to identify projects that would reap the full benefits of the Residency, ensure an overall coherence, and demonstrate their appeal for the animation film industry.

The selection committee is a broad-based group of animation professionals whose purpose is to thoroughly analyse the projects. For this 2024 edition: Aurel (Cartoonist, Director), Damien Brunner (Producer, Folivari), Jean-Christophe Roger (Director), Sara Wikler (Script Doctor) and Valérie Yendt (Distributor, Gebeka Films).

The winning projects in 2024

Discover the three animation feature film projects selected to the 2024 Annecy Festival Residency:

Shadow Work

Le Cabanon de l’oncle Jo by Maud Garnier and Marc Robinet, Co-Directors, and Marie Deboissy, Graphic Author (France)
Production: Offshore/White Star (France)
1967. With a heavy heart, 9-year-old Lili leaves Tunisia with her mother. She is going to live with her Auntie Denise and Uncle Jo in Saint-Denis. Lili doesn’t like it there. The buildings are grey, Auntie Denise is a cleaning fanatic, Uncle Jo is uncommunicative, the five cousins are noisy and the group of kids that hang around the streets call her a "dirty foreigner".
Escaping the neighbourhood hostility and her family, Lili decides to transform a piece of wasteland in the middle of the city into a luxuriant garden with jasmine, just like in Tunisia.

Zako

Zako by Tigran Arakelyan (Armenia)
Production: OnOff Studio (Armenia), Sacrebleu Productions (France), Broom Films (Lithuania)
The film is based on a true story. Zako is the name German soldiers gave to Soviet-Armenian painter Sargis Mangasaryan during the Second World War. Zako was in charge of drawing his tormentors’ portraits. Thanks to his talent, he survived the hell of the camps and avoided being exiled in Siberia.
In 1956, while visiting the famous Picasso exhibition at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, he was deeply moved by Guernica, which brought back his own memories of WWII.

Insectario

Insectarium by Sofía Carrillo (Mexico)
Production: Pimienta Films (Mexico)
In a world where insects have become extinct, Cerulia works cataloging and preserving specimens for the private collection of a renowned entomologist. One afternoon, as she leaves work, she accidentally knocks a valuable moth off the pin holding it in place. In an attempt to hide the evidence, she takes the moth home, only to discover that it comes back to life.

The 2024 winning writers

Discover the writers of these future animated feature films who will be joining the Annecy Residency from April this year.

  • Marie Deboissy
    Marie Deboissy

    Graphic Author of Le Cabanon de l’oncle Jo
    France

    Biography

    Marie Deboissy grew up in both sunny Guadeloupe and the Bordeaux region. She graduated in 2019 from the Atelier supérieur d’animation. Inspired by nature, where she spent her youth, she works predominantly with colour in realistic compositions steeped in mystery. She depicts characters, experiences and emotions by seeking out beauty in the tragic and ordinary. Alongside the directing, art directing and animation set designing, she develops her universe primarily through oil painting.

    "I’m very excited about the Residency because it’s a golden opportunity to refine the Cabanon de l’oncle Jo project’s animation style and techniques. It’s brilliant to be able to use this time exclusively for the film’s graphic development in a region that I love and in the company of other inspiring artists; especially thanks to the mentorships provided by the Residency. This is a unique opportunity that will bring great depth and artistic maturity to the film, but also to myself."

     
  • Tigran Arakelyan
    Tigran Arakelyan

    Director of Zako
    Armenia

    Biography

    Tigran Arakelyan is an artist with over a decade of expertise in animation and cinema.

    Graduating from Hakob Kojoyan secondary art school in 2009 and later earning a degree in Art Direction for Cinema from the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography in 2013, Tigran embarked on his artistic journey early in life. His skills grew while he worked as a designer at the well-known ReAnimania International Animation and Comics Festival from 2010 to 2012.

    With a profound passion for cinema, Tigran has worked as Art Director for over 10 movies, including the acclaimed Aurora’s Sunrise. His remarkable talent garnered prestigious awards, such as Best Art Director at the Anahit National Award Ceremony during the Academy Awards in 2019 and the award for Best Film at the One Minute One Shot competition organized by the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (ACCEA).

    Since co-founding OnOff Studio in 2018, Tigran has played a pivotal role in completing four short animated movies and is actively involved in the development of two TV series projects, three short animated movies, and the animated feature film Zako. The studio employs innovative immersive VR technologies as tools for animation development, showcasing Tigran's commitment to pushing creative boundaries in the industry.

    "Selected for the Annecy Festival Residency, I'm excited and feel a strong sense of responsibility. It's not just about personal growth; it's a chance to boost our studio and help advance the Armenian animation industry. I look forward to immersing myself in this transformative experience and leveraging it to make a lasting impact on both a personal and industry-wide level."

     
  • Sofía Carrillo
    Sofía Carrillo

    Director of Insectarium
    Mexico

    Biography

    Sofía Carrillo is a stop-motion animation film director.

    Winner of two Silver Ariel for Best Short Animated Film at the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences: Black Doll (Prita Noire) in 2011, and Cerulia, 2017.

    She is also the creator of the interstitials for the XX Anthology Horror Film, directed by Jovanka Vuckovic, Annie Clark, Roxanne Benjamin and Karyn Kusama (Magnolia Pictures and XYZ Films), which premiered at Sundance in 2017.

    Her work has participated at Annecy, Sundance, Chicago, Tricky Women, Sitges, Habana and other film festivals.

    Sofia is an AMPAS (Oscar) and AMACC (Ariel) Academy member. She also collaborated in the second unit of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

    "My Mexican heart is happy and proud to participate in this residency in Annecy, it is a huge honor, this will be a magnificent opportunity to enrich our project Insectarium."

     

The Residency's Partners

Haute-Savoie

Auvergne Rhône-Alpes
Netflix
TV Paint

Residency Archives 2023

During the 3rd Annecy Festival Residency, held from 3rd April to 30th June 2023, three projects were chosen and hosted:

  • Le Dernier des cailloux by Caroline Cherrier (France)
  • Shadow Work by Areito Echevarria and Raqi Syed (New Zeland)
  • The Bird Kingdom (O Reino dos Pássaros) by Wesley Rodrigues (Brazil/France)

(Re)discover these projects, their directors and the mentors who assisted them during their residency.

Residency Archives 2023

Residency Archives 2022

Residency Archives 2021

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The Festival

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Official selection

Official selection more info

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Awards

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Archives

Archives more info

Take a look back over the Festivals since 1960. >>> more info

A Word from the Selection Committee

A zeitgeist selection. This is how the selection committee could describe its choices for this 4th edition of the Annecy Festival Residency.

In the image of what festivals and cinemas fervently advocate, the committee was deeply moved by the stories that bring us face to face with the reality of our world and its complexity. Narratives led by authors who employ all their poetic gifts to tackle the "woefully" familiar yet such topical themes as species becoming extinct, being uprooted or imprisonment in times of war.

These promising animation filmmakers cast a candid, well-informed look on our society, acting as both witnesses and protagonists, because film provides us with this limitless scope for interpreting life.

Their works tackle weighty subjects, captured by artists who admirably handle the scriptwriting, artistry and camerawork. The 2024 selection reflects this commitment to supporting courageous, distinctive projects, where hope and art permit the heroes, and the works, to fight the most glorious battles to uphold life.

The committee trusts in the unity that will emerge from these unique encounters, revolving around projects that are so different yet so complementary! We look forward to seeing the results from this successful trio at the Mifa in June!

Agenda

9th June 2023

Registration opens

10th September 2023

Registration closes

November 2023

Selection announcement

5th April to 28th June 2024

Residency

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