AnnecyOrBust26 asks:
Dear Answerman! I know that you are a regular visitor to the Annecy International Animation Festival. What’s it all about? Is it more important to the Japanese anime production industry for their overseas marketing and outreach than events like Anime Expo in LA and Japan Expo in Paris, which attract a much bigger audience, and both of which are held the following week this year? Would you recommend Annecy to hardcore anime fans like me?
Well timed! I am writing this from the shores of Lac d’Annecy, as I decide whether to fondu or fon-don’t in the somewhat swampy 90-degree-Fahrenheit sunshine, at what is the world’s highest animation festival, amongst other things. Perhaps I’ll just enjoy another glass of the delicious Vin de Savoie while I bash out this answer.
The Festival International du Film d’Animation d’Annecy is the oldest and most prestigious animation film festival in the world, founded in 1960, held every June in a medium-sized alpine resort town in southeastern France on one of the most beautiful glacial lakes you will ever see in your life. Think of it as the Cannes Film Festival for animation, with the MIFA – the Marché International du Film d’Animation – as its Marché du Film equivalent. Four days of deal-making, pitch competitions, co-production meetings, and enough networking to leave even the most extroverted producer needing a week in a darkened room.
It is a festival for fans and professionals alike, but it is emphatically not a fan convention. The MIFA component is industry-accredited. The people with tote bags and 7 a.m. espressos are development executives, rights holders, directors, studio heads, and streaming platform scouts. It is where the business of animation gets done at a global scale, and it looks like a trade fair in a ski resort, which is exactly what it is. This year’s theme is “Animated Thrills and Chills,” anchored to a line from Guillermo del Toro‘s Academy Award speech for Pinocchio: “Animation is not a genre. You can meet all the genres in animation.” As someone who has spent twenty years arguing that anime is a medium, not a genre, I feel personally vindicated every time I walk through these doors.
Why Japan takes Annecy seriously
The Annecy Cristal, the festival’s supreme award, is considered the equivalent of the Palme d’Or for animated film. The greatest names in animation have been celebrated here: Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Hosoda, and Guillermo del Toro. All three Japanese directors received Honorary Crystals. Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso won the Feature Cristal in 1993. Takahata’s Pom Poko won it in 1995. In 2017, Masaaki Yuasa and Science SARU‘s Lu over the wall won the top prize, the first Japanese film to do so in 22 years. That same year, In This Corner of the World won the Jury Prize. Last year, Yasuhiro Aoki‘s ChaO, produced by Studio 4°C, won the Jury Prize. Japanese animators have been winning at Annecy for six decades.
It doesn’t matter whether you work at Pixar or Studio Ghibli. You are an animator. You are an artist. And being recognised by your peers at the festival that has honoured Miyazaki, Takahata, and Hosoda means something that no streaming deal, no box office number, and no social media metric can replicate. The prestige at Annecy is peer recognition, and Japanese creators understand that currency very well.
Last year I wrote a piece for this publication about Crunchyroll at Annecy, and I was pointed in my criticism. I felt they were showing up to screen things already acquired, taking a victory lap, and missing what Annecy and MIFA are actually for. Things like genuine partnership with the creative communities who are building new things in new places. However, with this year’s programme in front of me, I think I was one year too early.
Toei Animation is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. The studio that produced Dragon Ball, One Piece, Sailor Moon, and Digimon could have chosen Tokyo, AnimeJapan, or Anime Expo to mark this milestone. Instead, they chose Annecy. They are partnering with the Opening Night, maintaining a major market presence, and screening Monkey Quest, a new original Japan-USA co-produced feature, in the WIP (“Work in Progress”) programme. That is a deliberate institutional choice. And it arrives alongside a statement from inside Toei that says everything.
Speaking to href=”https://variety.com/2026/film/asia/Toei-animation-monkey-quest-global-strategy-cannes-2026-1236735413/ ”>Variety at Cannes about Monkey Quest, Toei Animation General Manager Asama Yosuke said, “The era when anime was something made only by Japanese people is over. From now on, we aim to create entertainment works rooted in local cultures together with creators from around the world.”
This is an astonishing thing for an anime producer to say publicly. Even more so when it comes from the head of Toei Animation. Whether or not the exclusively Japanese era of anime is over, it is notable that Annecy is the venue they have chosen to demonstrate it. If you ever do visit the festival, you will understand why. It is a safe space for all types of revelations and discussions about the future of animation production, including controversial subjects like private investment and AI. These events happen within the MIFA component of the festival. Think SXSW, but with more animation and less tech-brollox.
I have been a regular attendee at Annecy since 2014. Andrew Partridge at Anime Limited insisted I visit. I am eternally grateful for his advice, because it is by far my favourite industry event. In June 2016, I came to Annecy with GENCO Productions, producer Masao Maruyama, co-founder of Madhouse and MAPPA, and director Sunao Katabuchi to present his crowdfunded film, In This Corner of the World, as part of the Features WIP. We returned in 2017, in official competition, and we left with the Jury Prize for Best Feature Film. Annecy welcomed one of the first major fan-first anime projects. It has taken the rest of the industry nearly a decade to catch up.
Perhaps the most important reason Japan comes to Annecy every year is this. For the right film, Annecy doesn’t just celebrate great animation. It has the power to change what gets made and who gets to make it.
This year, Crunchyroll‘s programme feels like it belongs here. They are spotlighting Sekiro: No Defeat, Dreamland, Takopi’s Original Sin, and Grave of the Fireflies in the Classics program. Two of the featured titles deserve particular attention.
Dreamland is a French-language manga by Reno Lemaire, and has been published by Pika Édition since 2006, with nearly a million copies sold in France. Its animated adaptation by La Chouette Compagnie and Ellipse Animation streams globally on Crunchyroll, and it is the first time Crunchyroll has co-produced an animated series produced in France, based on a French IP. It is exactly the structural shift I was expecting to see last year, but of course, nothing happens quickly in animation, and this year is going to be one of those “Do you remember where you were when” moments.
La Chouette Compagnie also made Dragon Striker for Disney+, built with Japanese artists who worked on One Piece and My Hero Academia. Go and watch it. It is wonderful, the closest thing we have to the next Avatar: The Last Airbender right now.
Anime Expo (July 2–5, Los Angeles) serves the largest consumer market for anime outside Japan and China. It is a fan-facing launchpad for simulcasts and announcements, and an informal B2B marketplace for content and licensing deals on IP that already exists. Japan Expo (July 9–12, Paris), now in its 25th year, serves the second-largest consumer market of France. It’s the same logic: existing product, existing audiences, existing IP. Both are magnificent. Go if you can. Japan Expo guests this year include Keisuke Itagaki, YOSHIKI of X Japan, and the voice of Yuji Itadori from Jujutsu Kaisen, across 140,000 square metres and over 700 events.
Annecy and MIFA are something else entirely. Not a destination where you go to buy and sell what already exists, but instead, a place that determines what will exist next. It is a producers and creators forum. AX tells you what you will be watching this season. Annecy tells you what you will be watching in 2029, and it gives you a chance to be part of making it.
If you want autographs and fifty thousand people who love the same shows you do, go to Japan Expo, and have a wonderful time.
But if you work in animation, or want to, Annecy is the most useful event on earth for you. The MIFA Campus runs all week, specifically for students, graduates, and early-career professionals. You can bring your portfolio. You will meet directors, producers, and studio heads from forty countries actively looking for new talent. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government runs a Japan Pavilion through the Tokyo Anime Grand Prix programme, connecting emerging Japanese animation talent with international co-production partners. Canada, France, Brazil, and dozens of others run equivalent pavilions. You may find a studio. You may find the collaborator for the short film you have been building since art school. You may find a collective of people from six different countries who want to build something together that none of you could build alone.
No fan convention offers that.
The views are better. The food is more delicious than anything the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre or the Los Angeles Convention Centre has ever served. Sorry guys! And when del Toro gave his 2023 masterclass here, he told the room: “We are the weird motherf***ers in this room. Your family thinks you’re useless… And that’s good.”
That is the energy of this place. See you by the lake.
Things you get to see at Annecy first before anywhere else
The Ghost in the Shell (Science SARU/Amazon Prime Video) – The first two episodes of Science SARU‘s new Ghost in the Shell series, directed by DAN DA DAN‘s Mokochan in his feature debut, have their global world premiere at Annecy before the July 7 Amazon Prime Video launch.
Sekiro: No Defeat (Qzil.la / Crunchyroll) -The fully hand-drawn, “no-AI” anime adaptation of FromSoftware‘s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice screens in the Midnight Specials category before its September theatrical run and Crunchyroll global exclusive. The first FromSoftware IP to make the jump to animation.
We Are Aliens – In Official Competition (Miyu Productions/NOTHING NEW) – The debut feature from YOASOBI music video director Kōhei Kadowaki, a Franco-Japanese co-production about two boys whose childhood friendship fractures across decades, premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and is a genuine Cristal contender.
Paris ni Saku Étoile – Annecy Presents (Arvo Animation/Shochiku) – Gorō Taniguchi, creator of Code Geass, returns to feature directing with an 119-minute original anime written by Reiko Yoshida. His first feature in years. And it is set in Paris. Japan loves France!
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree – Annecy Presents (A-1 Pictures/Aniplex) – The first-ever anime adaptation of Keigo Higashino‘s million-selling novel, directed by Tomohiko Ito of Sword Art Online and ERASED, and the first time Aniplex has partnered with a European independent sales agent, France’s CHARADES, on a project of this scale.
The Ribbon Hero – Annecy Presents (OUTLINE/Twin Engine/Netflix) – Yūki Igarashi, the animator behind Jujutsu Kaisen‘s iconic first ending sequence, makes his feature debut reimagining Osamu Tezuka‘s genre-founding Princess Knight manga, streaming globally on Netflix on August 8.
Dreamland (La Chouette Compagnie/Crunchyroll) – The animated adaptation of Reno Lemaire’s million-selling French manga, streaming globally on Crunchyroll. A milestone for European-Japanese animation crossover.
Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia In Official Competition (Science SARU) – Directed by Abel Góngora, a Spaniard who began his career at Cartoon Saloon and French studio Ankama before joining Science SARU as one of its founding artists, with credits including DAN DA DAN Season 1 and 2. A career that began in European animation and found its home in Japanese anime is now, fittingly, in competition at Annecy.
KILLTUBE (Kazuaki Kuribayashi) – WIP Features – An original anime feature set in a futuristic city governed by Edo Period caste rules. In the WIP programme. One to watch. Brain-melting sakuga incoming.
ANNECY CLASSICS 2026: A Love Letter to Anime Cinema
The Annecy Classics programme this year is one of the most extraordinary retrospectives of Japanese animation ever assembled outside Japan. Four films. All essential. All restored.
Grave of the Fireflies – Isao Takahata. The film established beyond argument that anime could carry the full weight of human tragedy. Re-released with special thanks to Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment France. Takahata received an Honorary Cristal from this festival. The ultimate “Feel Bad” anime classic. Make no mistake, it is a devastating film, and its inclusion reflects deep respect and institutional memory for one of the GOATs of anime filmmaking. Respect.
Perfect Blue – Satoshi Kon. The film that influenced Darren Aronofsky. The film that proved an anime director could operate at the level of the greatest psychological thriller filmmakers alive. In the words of RZA, “Respect the genre,” and watch this freaking movie. Kudos to Rex Entertainment, Madhouse Inc., Viz Media Europe, and Anime Limited.
Ninja Scroll – Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Earlier this year, it became the first anime film ever screened in the Berlinale Classics section, with Kawajiri personally supervising the 4K colour correction from the original 35mm negative. Special thanks to Madhouse Inc. and Anime Limited.
Ghost in the Shell – Mamoru Oshii. The film the Wachowskis screened for their producers before making The Matrix. Special thanks to Metropolitan Filmexport and Anime Limited. Exciting, philosophical, and dour. You have to watch this movie before you simulcast The Ghost in the Shell on Amazon. For contrast.
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