Annecy Festival Residency: the 2026 winning writers
Discover the writers of these future animated feature films who will be joining the Annecy Residency.
Armin Rangani
Writer & Director of All the Heaven's Doors
Iran
Armin Rangani is a visual artist and animation filmmaker based in New York. With a BA in Architecture from the University of Tehran and an MA in Animation from Arts University Bournemouth, his work spans painting, animation, sculpture and art direction. His latest animated short, Mother Clay, premiered at the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. He was an artist-in-residence at Yaddo in 2025.
Raha Amirfazli
Writer of All the Heaven's Doors
Iran
Raha Amirfazli is an Iranian filmmaker currently pursuing her MFA in Film and Television Production at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She made her feature debut with In the Land of Brothers, a powerful exploration of Afghan refugees' lives in Iran. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, earning her the Directing Award: World Cinematic Dramatic. In recognition of her work, Raha was named the U.S. Recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Gold Fellowship for Women in 2024.
Matisse Gonzalez Jordán
Writer & Director of Condenaditos
Bolivia
Matisse Gonzalez Jordán is a filmmaker from Bolivia with a focus on animation. Her award-winning short film Gravedad was nominated for the Annie Awards and long listed for the 2022 Academy Awards. Matisse is the creator of It Was Only a Rock That Looked Like Someone, the pilot episode of her own series for Cartoon Network Latin America, which has accumulated more than 90k views on YouTube and won awards at various festivals, including the New York International Children's Film Festival.
She is currently developing her feature film Condenaditos in co-production with Studio Seufz in Germany and Ikki Films in France.
Gustavo Almenara
Director & Author of Todo viene del agua
France
Born in Paris, in 2006, Gustavo Almenara graduated in animation film from the École des Arts décoratifs in Paris. A moving image technician, for over 15 years he has been involved in hybrid projects in French animation and post-production studios.
As a digital artist, animator, editor and director, he explores different animation techniques and visual languages in his various collaborations: special effects, music videos, animated films and series, documentary films, performances and video mapping.
Since 2009, Gustavo has been co-directing live-action short documentaries with Émilien Cancet, focusing on the importance of dialogue. He won an award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2018 for the short documentary The Barber Shop, which portrays three exiles living in the Calais jungle. In 2020, he co-directed the animation documentary short Notices from Yonas with Aurélie Pollet, which traces a young Eritrean man's journey to Europe. Between 2021 and 2022, he co-directed two seasons of the contemporary art web series Artjacking! with Aurélie Pollet.
In 2020, Gustavo recorded the audio document that inspired his first feature-length animation project, Todo viene del agua (Everything Comes from Water), which is currently in development. Since 2024, Gustavo has been using 3D Blender software to create the film's universe.