Annecy Belgian Wrap-Up
Belgians were again all over Annecy this year, and they brought back eye bags, fond memories and multiple awards
Annecy is the greatest festival in the world.
And I’m not the only one saying it. From legendary actor Andy Serkis to DisneyPixar’s CCO Pete Docter and Academy Award Winner Guillermo Del Toro, everyone who comes to Annecy falls in love with the festival.
It has proven to be another incredible week, which I’ve spent running around Annecy between captivating work-in-progress, exclusive studio showcases and delightful interviews. Which also explains why my daily coverage project faltered as soon as I reached the lakeside city.
Annecy is also all about connections, and catching up with what’s been trending in the animation industry. Especially in Belgium, since we rarely have the occasion to meet one another, except in such big gatherings.
So, what have the Belgians been up to this Annecy? Let’s wrap things up, as everyone tries to acclimate back home, still coming out of this one-of-a-kind animation bubble.
Panique! Packs a Punch
From Official selection to the MIFA and WIP sessions, Panique! was all over Annecy this week. Between two screenings, I had the pleasure to meet with producer Hugo Deghilage, who has been with Panique since 2019 and helps perpetuate the legacy of founder and producer Vincent Tavier, along with bringing new and exciting talents on board. We will dive deeper in upcoming newsletters about what made Annecy 2025 so special for Panique, but also about the challenges that the Belgian production still faces today, creating animation in Belgium.
I was very happy to discover Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake thanks to Hugo on the very last day of the festival.
It’s a beautiful film with a deeply moving story, and seeing the crowd react to it so well must have been amazing for Irene Iborra Rizo and her team who also attended this screening.
The film, co-produced by Panique!, will release early 2026 in Belgian theaters. Can’t wait to talk about it in our Belgian magazine Surimpressions or on other media!
A — Belgian — Polar Bear Prince
I had briefly met Pascal Vermeersch last year in Annecy at the Café des Arts, THE place for thirsty animators roaming the festival-lit city.
This year, as Pascal was heading to Annecy, we spoke briefly about his collaboration on The Polar Bear Prince, a Belgian-Norwegian coproduction we already discussed around Cartoon Movie.
This article, which I will relay in a summer newsletter, is already available in the European Animation Journal, and you can read it here right now.
Sidenote : Vermeersch’s first short film is not — as I mention in this article — Hold me Tight, which is an impressive film by talented filmmaker Léoluna Robert-Tourneur. Vermeersch’s short, co-directed with fellow KASK-student Davy Sabbé, is called “La Muse Malade” and was selected in the Student Shorts competition in Annecy, back in 1999.
Today, Vermeersch boasts a decades-spanning career and has worked from Belgium on many European productions including The Secret of Kells, Titina and Phantom Boy. He teaches also at KASK, his alma mater, and I was very happy to chat with him during the students’ picnic this year.
I’ll definitely ask him if we can showcase his first short in an upcoming newsletter, providing a digital copy sits somewhere on the internet or an old shelf.
And for people not in Belgium, Hold me Tight — a great film as well — is available on VOD through Miyu Distribution. You can also watch the trailer below.
Fan meets Fan : finally running into Belgian artist and animator Maï Calon
Also a teacher at KASK, animator, visual artist and filmmaker Maï Calon had been on my radar for a long time. So I was very happy to learn that she was an Animation Belgian fan!
We had a wonderful chat with her and Britt Raes, who also teaches animation among many other things, and Calon introduced me to many KASK students, as well as to Belgian producer and filmmaker Bert Lesaffer from Animal Tank.
I hope we’ll get to talk more soon, as Calon brought a new film to the festival this year. It is only beginning its festival career, so I won’t dive to much into it today, but I really look forward to showcasing Ce que je vois here very soon! It looks incredible, and here’s what the director has to say about it:
Have you ever gone wandering through a landscape, and all of a sudden, there was a tree. Were you moved? Maybe by its architecture, dynamics and aesthetics?
With this short film I want to create an homage to the tree. A tree in all its glory.
Also, we should have taken a selfie, from fan to fan.
Showcasing Belgium on the International Stage
This has always been what this newsletter is about. But to me, it’s only as powerful as its reach. So I’m always happy to be able to put Belgian animation forward on bigger stages, with the hope that this gets more and more people interested in what our country has to offer.
Which is why I was delighted to include Dreamwalker as part of my MIFA Features Pitches round-up for Variety earlier this month.
A big shout-out to my editor Jamie Lang and to John Hopewell as well, to which I owe the pleasure of working with this world-class media. And congratulations to Veerle Appelmans and Rudi Mertens for this very good pitch!
You can learn more about the project here, and watch the teaser on ViviFilm’s website.
Wrapping up with three shorts
As mentioned above, Annecy had so much to offer for all Belgians present there this year.
To wrap up things, I managed to catch up with three Belgian shorts selected this year. They are touring festivals right now, but one is already available on Youtube, so there’s a little animation nugget for you at the end of this newsletter.
The reviews below were first published on Cinergie.be, feel free to check out their work.
The Carp and the Child – Morgane Simon, Arnaud Demuynck, 2024
Arnaud Demuynck, a veteran and one-man band who has carved out the lion's share of French-speaking Belgian animation, returned to Annecy this year with numerous projects. Among these, The Carp and the Child does not deviate from the rules that have made the producer-writer-director so successful: a story aimed at children that also resonates with adults and their inner-children, and a high-quality animation with powerful visuals.
Arnaud Demuynck co-wrote The Carp and the Child as a screenwriter, and directed with French director Morgane Simon, who holds a bachelor's degree from the Haute Ecole Albert Jacquard (HEAJ) and a master's degree from La Cambre. A winning combination that allowed her to join Studio L’enclume in Brussels, and collaborate with Arnaud Demuynck and Rémi Durin on the little gem that is Yuku and the Flower of the Himalayas.
In this new short film, already presented in February at the Anima festival, the Demuynck-Simon duo meet around a mischievous and cheerful story/soundtrack, the perfect companion to a sparkling animation with bucolic settings.
The film, selected in the children's section of the Official Competition, takes us fishing alongside a young child in search of carp. But between the dog, a noisy frog, and a boisterous duck, catching fish is no easy task.
A film – to quote its co-author – ‘like a haiku, a sweet moment of poetry and humor.’
It would be difficult to describe this lively little delicacy better, one that we would still like to bite into with gusto or contemplate like a delicate flower.
The Night Tunnel - Annechien Strouven, 2024
Offering a twist on the age-old tradition of sand tunnels that bored children dig to keep themselves occupied on the beach, The Night Tunnel unfolds as a tale of encounters, mutual aid and adventures, over the course of a well-paced day.
Indeed, it is after digging a tunnel on the beach that two children from different parts of the world meet, overjoyed to have each finally found a playmate. A story that we owe to Annechien Strouven for her short directorial debut, in association with screenwriter Bert Lesaffer, also a producer – with Brech Van Elslande – for the renowned Belgian animation studio Animal Tank.
Together, the author duo team up to bring to life these two toddlers armed with shovels and buckets, who dig their way through the sand to the North Pole where new encounters and new adventures await them.
In round and pleasant colors, The Night Tunnel unfolds like a tale of tolerance and curiosity, playing with tones to create universes that are sometimes diurnal, sometimes nocturnal, but always visually striking.
The humor nicely complements this sweet story told by a promising filmmaker who — through her previous collaborations on animated features The Siren and Le Parfum d’Irak — has been able to forge her character and create her style. We hope to see her continue this journey, and to find her again in a future edition of Annecy.
Vader Ademt, Juliette Pons, 2024
Last but not least, Vader Ademt was presented in the official selection — Off-limits category — at the Annecy Animation Festival. It is as much a sensory experience as it is a film, a journey into an infinitely small and infinitely complex world with astonishing sounds and equally astonishing beauty.
Set to atmospheric jazz music by the Flemish-Norwegian band Donder, Juliette Pons creates a ceramic film, bringing to life sculptures of great finesse through the magic of animated cinema. A microcosm inspired by swirls, marine creatures or deep-sea corals, reminiscences of the primordial times of creation.
Rarely seen on screen, this technique gives the film a unique aesthetic and a rich universe that evokes the ocean floor like the human body, mimicking breathing and plunging its audience into a mysterious world.
Juliette Pons is an animation student based in Brussels, Belgium. After exploring Numeric Arts at L'ESA st Luc, she gratuated in 2023 from a master degree at KASK. Her graduation film like drops on a bed of embers is currently showcased on KASK’s website, which means —you guessed it— more animation for you guys!
Per her socials, she a self-described material softener and mixed media animator fond of movement, giving life to straight and solid lines and creating immersive atmospheres with influences by 2d animators such as Michel Ocelot, Paul Grimault, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Norman MacLaren, Raoul Servais, Jean-François Laguionie and many others.
Pons creates with this film a work at the intersection of the arts, where we feel the powerful energy and delicate life that she breathes into these fascinating polyps and creatures. Worlds that definitely inspire animation and cinema through their mystery and their beauty, as complex as it is fragile, ranging from the recent features Dandelion’s Odyssey by filmmaker Momoko Seto —also a Belgian co-production —to Pixar's colorful Elio, which just released globally after premiering 25 minutes of footage in Annecy.
Vader Ademt is also powerful because of the relationship it creates between the piano's sounds and the ceramic's vibrations. Tinkling in unison, these two pieces create a hypnotic chorus and an experience we'd like to relive endlessly on the big screen.
This clip is available for free on Youtube, and you can watch it below.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter, I hope you found it interesting. I can’t wait to share more, and I'll make sure to keep you updated on Belgian animation summer in the upcoming weeks.
I also want to thank all the beautiful people I met at Annecy, be them Belgian or not. It’s such a joy to meet with fellow colleagues and dedicated animation lovers who came all the way from all over the world (I mean, Indiana, right?) to attend this impressive event. I can’t wait to meet you there next year, and to immerse myself more into the wonderful community that is the animation world.
Have a wonderful animated weekend y’all,
Kevin
