The 2019 Annecy Festival (June 10-15, www.annecy.org) has posted its feature film selections for both the prestigious festival competition and a diverse and entertaining lineup for its new “Contrachamps” program. Vying for the coveted Cristal and audience regard are new works from established names like Masaki Yuasa and Anca Damian as well as some of the most buzzed-about international titles.
In addition to the opening feature Playmobil: The Movie (accompanied by Looney Tunes Cartoons) and previously announced debuts of DreamWorks Animation’s feature Abominable and new short Marooned, special event screenings are set for Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 4 (directed by Josh Cooley), Spycies (Guillaume Ivernal, China/France), Human Lost (Fuminori Kizaki, Japan), Hello, World! (Anne-Lise Koehler & Eric Serre, France), Le voyage du Prince (Jean-François Laguionie, France) and the 20th anniversary special SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout.
Work-In-Progress feature film peeks on offer this year include Warner Animation Group’s Scoob (Tony Cervone, Dax Shepard), Netflix/SPA Studios’ Klaus (Sergio Pablos) and the latest from Your Name helmer Makoto Shinkai, Weathering with You (Toho Co.), plus Calamity, The Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary (Rémi Chayé, Maybe Movies), Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Sun Creature Studio, Final Cut For Real, Vivement Lundi !, MostFilms), Josep (Aurel, Les Films d’Ici) and Même les souris vont au paradis (Denisa Grimmová, Jan Bubeníček, Les Films du Cygne, Fresh Films, Panache Productions, Cinemart SK).
Attendees can also check out WIP sessions on upcoming TV series Culottées (Phuong Mai Nguyen, Charlotte Cambon de Lavalette; Silex Films), Do Ré & Mi (Fabien Ouvrard; Gaumont, Amazon Studios), Eden (Yasuhiro Irie; Qubic Pictures, CGCG, Nice Boat, Wolfsmoke), Incredible Ant (Cheng Li, Alibaba) and Vanille, (Guillaume Lorin, Folimage), as well as immersive media projects Dislocation (Veljko Popović, Milivoj Popović, Lemonade3D) and Mirror (Pierre Zandrowicz, AtlasV).
Feature Films Competition:
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles (Salvador Simo, Spain)
Checkered Ninja (Anders Matthesen, Thorbjørn Christoffersen; Denmark)
Marona’s Fantastic Tale (Anca Damian, Belgium/France/Romania)
Ride Your Wave (Masaaki Yuasa, Japan)
The Bears Famous Invasion (Lorenzo Mattotti, Italy/France)
The Relative Worlds (Yuhei Sakuragi, Japan)
The Wonderland (Keiichi Hara, Japan)
White Snake (Kahong Wong, Ji Zhao; China)
Feature Films – Contrechamp:
Away (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia)
Children of the Sea (Ayumu Watanabe, Japan)
Homeless (José Ignacio Navarro Cox, Jorge Campusano Santiago O’Ryan; Chile)
Kung Food (Haipeng Sun, China)
Salma’s Big Wish (Carlos Gutiérrez Medrano, Mexico)
Underdog (Sung-yoon Oh, Chun-baek Lee; South Korea)
Ville neuve (Félix Dufour-Laperriere, Canada)
Zero Impunity (Nicolas Blies, Stéphane Hueber-Blies, Denis Lambert; France/Luxembourg)
More details about the program here.
