Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri received the Annecy Int. Film Festival’s “Golden Ticket” Lifetime award in a surprise session at the festival on Wednesday morning. Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams, who provided the blockbuster hit song “Happy” for Illumination’s Despicable Me 2 movie in 2013 and did voices for the studio’s The Grinch and Sing 2 presented the animation veteran the award during a surprise session.
Meledandri has been attending Annecy with filmmaker Benjamin Renner to reveal new footage from Illumination’s holiday feature Migration, which is set to open on Dec. 22. Penned by Emmy-winner Mike White (White Lotus, Despicable Me 4, Nacho Libre), the movie will open in theaters on Dec. 22. Featuring the voices of Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina, Carol Kane and Danny DeVito, the movie centers on a family of mallards who convince their over-protective father to go on a vacation of a lifetime as they try to migrate from New England, through New York City, on to the Bahamas.
“To create with Chris, to see the world through his eyes, means that clouds don’t have to be white. And that there’s water to be found in the desert,” Williams said in his introduction to Meledandri. “And every roadblock, if you look closely enough, can be a road map to a better place. No walls, no ceiling, no time frame, no limits. That’s where Chris lives.”
“The collaboration between Illumination and Annecy has been a determining factor in the Festival’s recent development,” said Marcel Jean, Annecy’s Artistic Director. “The trust that Chris Meledandri has placed in us, in particular during the various film launches for the Despicable Me franchise, has been a tremendous boost to our development. Awarding the Golden Ticket to Chris Meledandri symbolizes how significant this bond is for Annecy.”
“Chris Meledandri has been instrumental in changing the way feature films are produced. By choosing to produce in Europe, and in particular in France, he has unified the best of two continents. It is this visionary ethos that we want to celebrate,” said Mickaël Marin, CITIA’s CEO.
Meledandri later told Deadline that he is working on another project with Despicable Me and Minions director Pierre Coffin. “We are working on another film but we’re also working on some short format animation which is such an incredible medium,” he said. “That structure of the short format is just incredible, working in that efficient way to get right to something. We hope very shortly to share one of the short film projects.”
Annecy attendees were also treated to a first-look at a the opening 25 minutes of the film, followed by a behind-the-scenes discussion with director Benjamin Renner and Meledandri., placing particular emphasis on Renner’s background as graphic-novel artist and 2D animator. The director discussed his inspirations for the movie and how he used his background in 2D-animated features such as Ernest and Celestine and “he Big Bad Fox and Other Tales to the CG-animated feature. He also discussed the design of the main characters and how the artistic team took lessons from the natural world to bring them to animated life.
Watch trailer below:
Sources: Deadline, Variety
