by Rob Kohr

Annecy, France – June 7-12, 2004 – I wasn’t really all that sure that I would be attending this festival at all. But because of a last minute bid on Priceline and a bit of luck, I am here now. In brief, this is just a short monologue of the daily events at this years festival. I hope that this is of some interest. If you have any comments contact me at [ rkohr@animatorsunite.com ].

MONDAY – I arrived yesterday at around 1pm and was awed by the absolutely astounding beauty of this French City. On top of that I went exploring in the old section which is sort of reminiscent of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World.

Regardless of what kind of pass you have, you have to get up early in the morning to attempt to beat the crowds to the tickets for the shows that are “In Competition”. In addition to these there are also films that are “Special Screenings” and “Panoramas”. Annecy is honoring Korean Animation this year so a majority of the films in the “Special Screenings” category are Korean. The films to be screened include: WONDERFUL DAYS, HAMMER BOY, EMPRESS CHUNG, and OSEAM (which is also in Competition). The features that are in Competition are OSEAM, HAIR HIGH, PINOCCHIO 3000, EL CID, and TOTO SAPORE AND THE MAGICAL STORY.

Today, I was able to see Competition Three of Student films, which included some wonderful projects such as Wouter Sel’s MR. J. RUSSEL, Tim Van Wielendaele’s WHAT THE…?, Chris Choy’s CATS, Hyun-joo Kim’s THE UMBRELLA AND A LOACH, and JJ Villard’s SON OF SATAN.

Following that there was a really terrific program that looked at graphic animation in live action film credits. The spots shown included clips from the early James Bond films, Hitchcock films, and more recently Fight Club and Xmen 2. The idea behind this was to pay tribute to the animators who produced these works and rarely get credited.

Then it was off to the Ub Iwerk’s documentary. Over all it was really good, Disney produced it so it did feel a little slanted. Other than that it was really interesting to see all the scientific achievements he made following his return to Disney Studios.

In the evening I saw two Korean films, PRINCESS CHUNG and OSEAM. CHUNG was good story wise, but like Hammer Boy the animation was weak and very television looking. I think that the coloring is too saturated and bold; sort of the way a lot of TV animation is done so it can be eye catching. OSEAM was a lot better, the animation was better, the coloring was more subdued and the story was very strong, although some what melodramatic.

It was a long day, I probably won’t pull off 5 films in a row again, but I was able to meet up with a lot of people and also get to know some new ones.

TUESDAY – When you spend the whole first day of a festival trying to see every film your bound to not be able to keep up the pace. I woke up late and was not able to get tickets. Though in the end I was able to get press accreditation, so now I can see these films and review them. Other than attempting to get online and going out to dinner I wasn’t able to see much. All I was able to see was the screening of WONDERFUL DAYS. I had seen this film before in English, but seeing a film on the “big screen” is always a treat. It’s a really amazing film, though the story is not so good. You never really empathize with the main characters and care that much for their relationship A few of the films I really want to see are in French including this one. I was happy to find that INNOCENCE: GHOST IN THE SHELL is going to play, also in French… oh well better than nothing, I guess its the Cannes print.

Later I was invited to a Holland Animation Party on this Island in the canal… some good times and good drink. Bill Plympton was there as well as John Dilworth. Also there were the Holland animators, whom I met briefly as well as Nik and Nancy Phelps who often tour the festivals because their music is on so many of the selecties films.

After that I went out to dinner with friends and had some good French wine. But then a really big storm blew in and ended that party. So we ducked back into the theater and caught the tale end of the Shorts 2 competition. Some of the films included Georges Schwizgebel’s THE MAN WITHOUT SHADOW, Carlos Saldanha’s GONE NUTTY and Marc Craste’s JO JO IN THE STARS. Then it was time to call it a night.

WEDNESDAY – Day three of the festival. I ran into Amid Amidi, one of the writers for Cartoon Brew and the head of Animation Blast! Magazine. For some reason or another we got into talking about Satoshi Kon’s TOKYO GODFATHERS which premiered Monday night. He spoke with Ray Harryhausen after the screening, you can read more about their discussion at
[ www.cartoonbrew.com ].

After that and the updating of this website, I went to the TV Films screening. I thought that it was the Shorts Screening but not until after the half hour Clasky Csupo spot. The show IMMIGRANTS was directed by Andrei Svislotski for Global Tantrum, Inc. The adult version of Csupo. Over all it was good, though it will be interesting to see if it can survive on Spike TV. The other highlight of the screening was one of the new Aardman shorts CREATURE COMFORTS CATS OR DOGS. Of course it was good, though it did lack some of the charm of the original, especially when it came to the extra background animations of the animal’s antics. TURKISH DELIGHTS was also quite amusing, Then there was this horrid show BOSOM PALS, man it was painful, though I guess that design has merit.

Following this I was able to get into Shorts Competition 3 which featured some really wonderful spots. Notably Mark Kausler’s IT’S THE CAT featuring an animation style that harkens back to the early Warner cartoons and even as far back as Felix. FRENCH KILLERS by Nicolas Jacuet was also entertaining though in more of a dark humor sort of way. Pjotr Sapegin’s THROUGH MY THICK GLASSES reflected on WWII in Oslo; though serious, it came across very light hearted and funny at times. My personal favorite was THE WAY by Qing Huang. Though it was not a narrative it did take you through a 3D washed ink world of an Asian ink painting. Then I met up with my friends Celia and Jim, Celia’s the VP around here, Jim is a comic artist for Meat Haus Enterprises.
[ Pat Smith ] came too and we all got crêpes.

I then went to, what I think, was the greatest disappointment of the day EL CID. First off the acting was horrible, but that is okay, because I saw it dubbed not subbed, Other than that they were unable to pull off the “Disney” style. They did do the Disney constant movement and endless bobbing around thing, but at least in a Disney film there was always at least one piece of the animation that just floored you. The animation in EL CID was nothing special. The story was a bit better than most of the recent Disney films. It had a beginning, middle and end but the poor dialogue, tongue-in-cheek sexual innuendo and endless puns deflated the whole thing. In the end it just felt like a rip off of Disney and Braveheart, but without the good dialogue.

After something like that you need a drink, so I went to the Korean Animation Party, which could have been better if I didn’t get there at the end; I missed the food. I had fun, though these parties are a tad hard for us Americans here. I don’t speak French or Korean so it made it kind of difficult to approach anyone… and any conversation that you over heard was usually in these languages so you could never find I way to get involved. So all the Americans drifted outside and sat around in a daze. After that it was off to bed in my hotel without a shower.

THURSDAY – One thing that I have yet to bring up is the atmosphere at this festival, it rivals none other. There is this total and absolute love of animation by all people here. Every night of the festival, except the last, there is a screening on the “giant screen” outside of a number of films, including MONSTERS INC., INTERSTELLA 5555, SPIKE & MIKE’S TWISTED MONSTER FEST and others. Proceeding these there is always some sort of concert, where most of the local youth and the festval goers crowd the huge field and listen to different kinds of music.

This year the local animation studio, Breistol Animation, designed the festival opener. As a tradition in this festival, it must include something about carrots and rabbits. This year they produced one that pokes fun at horror films… the crowd jokingly screams “The Rabbit!” in French and then that part where the man in the carrot suit gets scared by the rabbits the audience screams along. Theres that and another tradition that I found. a large number of the theater goers make paper airplanes and attempt to throw them onto the stage, When one lands on the stage everyone claps. Lastlly there is one other tradition. For five of the six days of the festival there is a morning screening in the main theater of all the short films. Following the short the dirtector is supposed to stand up on the stage when introduced. If the audience like the film they clap, if they dislike it they boo the direcotr off of the stage. All of these give this festival an electric vitality.

I also had the opportunity to see a film print of the orginal KING KONG from 1933. It was one of Ray Harryhausen’s greatest influences; they showed the film and had him introduce it.

When I looked into what was playing at this festival a few months ago, one film stood out that I thought would be the worst film, PINOCCHIO 3000. I saw this film tonight, and infact wanted to dislike it. Other than the ending being a little weak, overall it was an entertaining and cute film. Personally the charater design does nothing for me, but other than that I was suprised. This film along with EL CID were both produced by the Spanish Studio Filmax amoungst others.

I also was able to see Competition 4 for the short films. Of mention are Christopher Hinton’s NIBBLES, Mirek Nisenbaum’s SIGNES DE VIE, Hisko Hulsing’s SEVENTEEN and Sejong Park’s BIRTHDAY BOY. Of these I loved the animation in SIGNES DE VIE, even though it looked like it could have been rotoscoped, the dance parts were done with a simpler form and line, these were beautiful.

After all this fun I had to go out and stay out until 3 am.. argh.

FRIDAY – Today I woke up a tad late because of the party which I guess is not a bad thing. Though I was not able to get into Forget the Film, Watch the Credits 2. I really wanted to see this special, because it featured animated openings from live action features that were narratives as well as title sequences. Oh well.

In stead I went to see Ray Harryhausen speak in the main Theater; originally I was not going to do this, but in the end it was better that it worked out this way. The program was part interview and part screening of his more memorable screen moments. Other than that the questioning was not so good, I think there was a bit of language barrier. Apparently in French questions are stated not asked, so the interviewers were not asking anything, even though they were speaking in English. This seemed to annoy some of the audience. That and the statement/questions were lame. One for example was “The films that you worked on were directed by others, but for some reason they have now become known as Harryhausen films, did you ever plan to direct?” or “did you get involved with casting?” God guys he’s not the casting director! Any who Mr. Harryhausen kept his cool, though seeming to be a little annoyed by the questions.

After that was the final Shorts Competition, 5. I missed the first few films, because Bill Plympton wanted me to meet his distributor in France and show them the Chicken Suite Time Laps that Brian Haimes did [ www.brianhaimes.com ] its a riot! Check out the second film too of the guy under water its soooo funny. I missed Auther de Pins’ THE CRAB REVOLUTION by a few minutes, I heard later that was one of the best in the bunch. Other than that I came on the last few minutes of Rao Heidmets’ INSTINCT; a great stop motion film where woman gets the better of God. RAGING BLUES, by Vincent Paronnaud and Lyonnel Mathieu, was a brilliant Dark comedy, though I don’t think they needed the CGI to do this and could have done a better job as a 2D film. BIP-BIP by Romain Segaud was also brilliant as well as very strange, though I think if I understood the song I might have liked it more. Of course I must mention the amazing film L’INVENTAIRE FANTÔME by Franck Dion; this superb stop motion film seems to have the Burton-esc feel, however it completely strays from the look while keeping a morbid feel; its definitely something new.

I went to the “American Bar” tonight which is really an Irish pub, but everyone calls it the American Bar, because that is where all the English speakers hang out.

SATURDAY – First thing today I went to see the Theater screening of Bill Plympton’s HAIR HIGH. The main theater in which it was being screened is huge, the theater was almost full for the show. It seemed that the entire crowd was waiting for this one. Bill presented the film and then it rolled (Sorry about the plug for Bill. yes I worked on the film so I am not the best person for a review). I saw a cut of the film a few months ago, the version that Bill showed at Annecy cut out some lovely animation sequences, however the cuts really helped the story and made it a lot better as a whole. One thing that I noticed, as well as Celia, is that the French Audience seemed not to get the double meanings in the film, the sexual references and puns. Still the film got quite an applause when it was it finished.

Ah yes the final screening and for me the most anticipated film of the whole festival, INNOCENCE: GHOST IN THE SHELL. I decided to go to the theater 2 hours early, I thought I would be the first and lone person, well I was one of the first but not the only, In fact by the show time there were almost a 1,000 people squeezed into the lobby of the theater to see this film. Then a woman announced in French that only 379 would be allowed in, no more no less. I was one of those very happy few.

Now for the film, mind you it was subtitled in French and the audio was in Japanese, in fact it was the Cannes print (the Cannes logo got booed). Overall the film had a very warm feeling where as the first film had a cool feeling. INNOCENCE was very orange while the first film was very green. The images were stunning. The story seemed good, at least its a good sign when you can understand the pantomime of the film without audio. For now though that’s all I will say. The CGI was well synched with the CGI, I do feel that the 2D style competed with the CGI style. Both elements were beautiful but seemed polarized. The 2D animation was nice, though nothing exceptional in that department, which was one of the things that endeared the first film to me. Especially the opening of the first film. Structurally the films are the same. In this way the intro sequence was all CGI, it was good, though not special. As I said the films are similar, both the opening and ending offer similar questions. Unfortunately I think that this hurt the film, because I wanted to see something new, like the TV series. This film is mainly concerned with Batou and Togasa, Motoko is not in the beginning of the film. The whole point in this films, as well as all the other GHOST IN THE SHELL properties is the idea of the body and soul being two different things and the question of which defines us as human. I can see some disliking this film, though I think it will do well when released in the US. Bill Plympton invited me to the closing show, it went really fast… Bill’s Hair High did not win, thought I thought that it would be his or OSEAM, OSEAM took the crystal. For best short, the film LORENZO by Mike Gabriel, took the crystal for best short. This film was produce by Disney, which seemed to have angered a lot of the filmmakers. If you would like to see a list of the winners go to the Annecy website at [ www.annecy.org ].

After the closing I spent a few hours at the closing party, which was a lot of fun. Talked to a lot of people, some of the same that I had seen all week, and some new ones too. Met some cool folks from Amsterdam as well as Spike from the Spike and Mike show. I had to leave early though because my train leaves at 8 am!

It was an awesome festival. I wrote this account in hopes that the readers may want to attend next year. I am definitely thinking about going myself again.