The Main Event of the Animation World

Welcome! It’s a new Sunday issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, and here’s the plan:

• 1. On Annecy 2026.

• 2. Animation newsbits.

• 3. The last word.

Now, let’s go!

The Annecy Festival happened this past week. If you keep up with the news in animation, it was hard to miss. It’s the biggest event in the animation world, and it gets bigger each year.

It’s held in France, in the Alps, right near the lovely Lake Annecy. And, at the 2026 edition, there were 19,100 accredited attendees (a high) from 118 countries.1

Annecy is a film festival that doubles as a venue for business. Plus, increasingly, it gets compared to Comic-Con: it’s “become dominated by big companies” in recent years, to quote the journalist Kambole Campbell. That was visible at Annecy 2026, whose opening ceremony hosted the premiere of the third Minions movie.2 The week’s headline stories were often Hollywood-centric.

Pixar showed Gatto, its stylized CG film — director Enrico Casarosa went over its illustrative look and use of frame-rate modulation. The new DreamWorks feature Forgotten Island met with an extended standing ovation. Disney was there; Warner’s slate was massive. The list went on.

“There are more and more [American] studios coming to Annecy, wanting to be in Annecy,” said Marcel Jean, the festival’s artistic director.3 As he told Le Film Français during the week:

We must recognize that, for these large studios, Annecy is a “safe space.” They find an audience of enthusiasts and connoisseurs who have a relationship with animation that is both passionate and respectful. In addition, certain filmmakers whose names don’t have a particular resonance with the press or public at the major general-interest festivals are welcomed like stars at Annecy because all of our spectators know them. … Also, many participants have a real influence on the films’ trajectories. The studios know that, at Annecy, a very high number of Oscar voters attend the screenings.4

It should be said: the American system is Europe’s competitor, too. Industry reports at Annecy 2026 showed as much. Data reveals that America’s stuff takes up roughly twice as much of Europe’s own “viewing time” as European creations. More troublingly, a report noted that “American platforms (Netflix, Amazon, YouTube) capture audiences and advertising revenue, but invest nearly nothing into European animation.” That’s fueling an industry downturn in France and beyond.5

Maybe, then, you could call the Hollywood–Annecy partnership a bit one-sided. For Disney, an Annecy boost is a nice perk. But it’s been life-or-death for smaller, quirkier projects like Europe’s Flow, Robot Dreams and Arco. This is the festival where they really get to shine. It’d be a shame if that work was overshadowed.

The good news: in 2026, the other Annecy was still alive. It’s still a place for the animation of the wide world — not just from Europe, but from everywhere.

Annecy had firsts this year. For example, the first Nigerian short to screen in competition (The Travails of Ajadi), and New Zealand’s first-ever stop-motion feature (Kiri and Lou Go Raaa!).6 The latter is a charming piece of claymation that’s very much a small-scale, handmade thing. Its co-director told Cartoon Brew:

I hope it’s an antidote to the prevalence of digital content. I understand that digital stuff is prevalent because directors and producers can go back and change the work of the animators until it’s just like everything else that’s being made. So there’s a way to make this stuff that’s more in the hands of the animators, that prioritizes creators, and allows the audience to see something new.

Similarly aiming to make history was a film in Annecy’s MIFA area — where pitches get in front of powerbrokers, and deals get landed. The pitch in question was The Wanderers of Time, positioned as the first stop-motion feature from Peru. “The puppets draw inspiration,” wrote journalist Ryan Gaur, “from the Peruvian tradition of creating miniatures as offerings to deities and the dead.”

Behind Wanderers is artist Siwar Peralta (Puririkuy), who’s developed the project for several years and wants it to further Peru’s animation scene. Given that his film was singled out by Variety and then won a MIFA award, it’s well on its way.7 You can watch its teaser here.

Among Variety’s other MIFA highlights was Rise of Ying Ge. Its look caught our notice, too — as did the name of its director, Denis Do, whose Funan (2018) previously won Annecy’s top prize.

Rise of Ying Ge is a co-production between France and China. Its subject is traditional Yingge dance, performed in costumes and face paint, and the film (unlike the very dark Funan) is intended for families. One to keep an eye on.

As usual for Annecy, Rise of Ying Ge was far from the only project with French involvement — the home team is well loved at the festival. There was hype around The Wolf, for one. That film is a work in progress about a shepherd in the Alps, and its team went on location to understand the lifestyle. Here’s co-director Benjamin Massoubre (The Summit of the Gods, I Lost My Body):

… we became aware of the anxiety caused by the possibility of a wolf attack. When there is one, people do not say, “My flock was attacked,” but, “I was attacked.” The wolf strikes at the intimate level. It’s a real dramatic catalyst.8

Another WIP with French roots was Séraphine. Director Sarah Van Den Boom is a veteran, but this is her debut feature. She calls it “a film about humans, a political film at a child’s eye level and a period film.” Le Film Français calls it “almost a miracle.” You can see its pilot below:

European animation was important at Annecy’s 2026 edition. But neither it nor Hollywood absorbed all the buzz. Interestingly, it was India that brought one of the most widely talked-about projects: Baahubali: The Eternal War.

Once you’ve seen the teaser, it’s no secret why such attention surrounds this film. The Eternal War is visually wild, with a stylized CG look that recalls Spider-Verse without simply cloning it. And, although he isn’t its director, S. S. Rajamouli (RRR) is involved. The Eternal War is tied to his live-action Baahubali series.

At Annecy, The Eternal War was presented as a WIP to “a fully packed hall responding with claps and cheers,” reported AnimationXpress. Afterward, Rajamouli told Variety that the film’s concept — “taking Baahubali into the 14 realms of Indian mythology” — came from its director, Ishan Shukla.

This concept has grown into an ultra-ambitious movie whose team is spread across India, Scotland, France and more. Word arrived this week that even Japan’s Studio Khara is on board, with Mahiro Maeda (Gankutsuou) contributing. The goal is “something contemporary,” Shukla told Cartoon Brew. He continued:

… it’s not going hyper-realistic because that ages really fast. Instead, we wanted something more painterly, something closer to the concept art. It’s tragic when you get great concept art, and then the final CG looks nothing like it, so the idea was to mimic the concept art while adding some sakuga-style anime because we have gods fighting.

India’s showing, even beyond The Eternal War, was strong at Annecy 2026. Take the pitch And on That Day… (another Variety pick) by twin directors Kushagra and Kushal Kishore. They posted before the event, “We have been working on this film for the past four years now and we are so excited that we can finally start sharing more about our film with everyone!”

Not to be outdone, Studio Eeksaurus screened its very good India Lens (watch) in the commissioned film competition. It’s a bright collage that, according to director Nijin Nazeem, is designed to express the idea of “jugaad, which literally translates to ‘a clever hack’ or ‘an inventive fix.’ ”

Annecy wrapped up on Saturday. At the closing ceremony, the festival handed out its awards. Unsurprisingly, the Cristal grand prize for commissioned films went to Unloved (watch) — a really popular French ad. The brief and enjoyable Eco Beat (watch), a German-made PSA, took the jury prize.

Again, it’s the norm for Europe and especially France to win at Annecy. And win they did: Iron Boy, Blaise, Core Dump, The Great Dreamscape, The Song of the Storms, Gently.

The Cristal victors among shorts and features, though, were less expected. Don Hertzfeldt’s new piece claimed the first; the winner of the second was a bit shocking. “There were audible gasps as the crowd slowly figured out which film the jury was describing,” wrote Jamie Lang of Cartoon Brew.

That film is The Violinist. When it arrived this year, it was the first Singaporean feature to compete for the Cristal. Now, it’s the first to win one.

The Violinist walked a long road to get here. “This project has taken more than a decade to realize,” said co-director Ervin Han. The process began with his 2015 short The Violin (watch), upon which he built the feature. This time, he teamed up with Spain’s Raúl García, an animator from the Disney renaissance. “It was something almost magical, we really hit it off,” García said.

The film is about World War II and Southeast Asia’s colonial era, and about music. Violin-playing was a key challenge for the animators. “We created a dedicated unit whose only job was animating violin performances. The finger positions had to match the music,” García told Cartoon Brew earlier this month.

For the story behind The Violinist, check out that interview and Animation Magazine’s great feature on the film. The gist is that the project was sprawled across many countries — Singapore, Spain, Malaysia, Indonesia and more — and funded in part through Europe’s co-production system. Slowly, it happened. Now, Gold Derby is calling the film Singapore’s “best chance in years” to get its first Oscar nomination.9

With another Annecy Festival ended, planning for the 2027 event is already underway.

The country of honor next year will be Colombia — its animation is getting a spotlight. And the word is that Annecy 2027 will be Marcel Jean’s last in the artistic director role, where he’s been since the 2013 edition. The festival boomed on his watch, and whoever replaces him will have big shoes to fill.

Each year, the news out of Annecy is an update on the state and overall health of animation around the world. Not every sign in 2026 was a good one. Europe’s industry, again, is struggling; there are threats to cut France’s state-funding apparatus. Meanwhile, a protest erupted over a film with GenAI imagery, amid Annecy’s (and the industry’s) growing embrace of GenAI animation.

Judging by the festival this year, though, the animation world still has fight in it. Annecy 2026 remained a place where ex-pats from Russia’s animation diaspora could share their art, like Natalia Mirzoyan with Winter in March and Anton Dyakov with Black Box. It was a place where ambitious films from Mexico (Lights of April, Insectario) and Chile (Brave Cat) could win prizes and get deals. And, again, it was a place where a long-shot dream project from Singapore could make headlines worldwide.

The really unlikely and really personal stuff is still out there, and Annecy is still a platform for the underdogs. That’s what gets us excited about it every year.

• We lost animator Luis De La Rosa (34) and actor Akihiro Miwa (91).

• In America, directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois posted a wordless tribute to the late actor Daveigh Chase, the voice of Lilo.

• In Palestine, two sisters in Gaza have set up a small, homebrew theater that screens animated films for children.

• The French film Patouille and the Parachute Seeds (2021) is newly on YouTube, and worth a look.

• In Russia, Leonid Shmelkov’s feature Restlessness will have a theatrical release next month, despite its controversial snubbing at Suzdalfest in March. It comes as Shmelkov has achieved social media fame with his animations about a blue dog-man.

• Also in Russia: the living legend Garri Bardin posted his new film The Russian Waltz on YouTube.

• In Morocco, the French network TV5Monde invested €1 million into local animation, backing 10 animated series from two studios.

• The Australian animator Alex Grigg posted a great, short tutorial on “contour spacing,” and how to animate more definite, concrete lines.

• Speaking of The Wolf from France: the film just secured an investment of €450,000 from Eurimages.

• Finally: a look at the creative environment that Michael Sporn built in New York City.

Thanks for reading today’s issue! We’re closing out with personal comments from the two of us:

John: Our process with the newsletter runs seven days a week. Work begins a few days in advance for each issue, and we pick article topics carefully, based on the time we’ve got and what’s energizing us that week. The days after deadlines (Monday, Tuesday and Friday) often go to administrative work and prep, and a little breathing. It’s rewarding, but we’ve learned how important it is to pace ourselves. On that note: our regular mid-year recap and break are coming up soon. I’m excited to relax a bit, work on research projects that don’t fit into our regular schedule and clear out my backed-up tabs!

Jules: Alongside the other work and relaxation on the break, I’m looking forward to developing a children’s picture book idea of mine! I think of animation, comics and picture books (and so many other combinations of visuals and storytelling) as branches of “sequential art” — visual art arranged in sequence like words in a sentence. I’ve found that a surprising amount of what works in one of these mediums can carry over into the others, and that they even have surprisingly similar histories of development. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved this combination of art and story, whatever form it takes.

Until next time!