annecy

I’m back from Annecy – in fact it’s been a few weeks, but I haven’t blogged for so long, I didn’t know where to begin!

Annecy is one of the biggest animation festivals in the world, set in a beautiful, historic town near the French Alps.
Can you argue with cheese and prosciutto baguette, some giant swans attacking you and a view like this? I think not.

Not to mention, amazing animation from around the globe. Such as:
Skhizein – a French short film about a man who, after having been struck by a meteorite, finds that he is precisely 91 cms away from himself. A wonderful, witty, inventive script and gorgeous design made this my favourite short of the festival. It was everyone else’s favourite apparently, as it won the audience award.

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, a modern interpretation of the Ramayana, ‘The Greatest Break-up Story Ever Told’. The director parallels her own story, of being dumped over email by her husband, to that of Sita, mistreated and cast away by Rama. Paley animated and produced this feature over 5 years on her own!

But clearly, the most important movie at the festival was the opening film, Waltz with Bashir.
An Israeli animated documentary about the director’s experience of being unable to remember events that took place during his military service in 1982, when the Sabra and Shatila massacres took place. He retraces and interviews old friends who served with him in an attempt to discover the truth.



(I’m so glad I know Hebrew, as there were no English subtitles, and the French headphone translation was a terrible monotonous voice!)


While I was away I won a few prizes at the Warburton Film Festival in Victoria - best animation, best student film and the audience award for Lucille, so thank you VERY much nice audience!

And if anyone reading is from Perth, I have 2 films screening at the Perth International Film Festival this Saturday the 12th, in the Animation Showcase at 4:30pm.

phew!