Annecy: Animation Takes Center Stage

Festivals (like fashion shows) are where trends are set. We look forward to them (more so to the festivals than the fashion shows)

The 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, to be held June 21–27 in that fairy-tale village. After closing out 2025 with record attendance—both general public and accredited attendees—it faces new challenges. We have survived the pandemic, digitization, and streaming platforms, and now we are fighting for honesty and the respectful use of artificial intelligence.

Con ADAM ELLIOT de MEMORIAS DE UN CARACOL

Those who struggle are the ones who face the daily grind of work, finding a voice in animation. What we might call authorship. By harnessing the power of their storytelling—where the rules don’t matter and they can create the impossible—the only law that defines their context is that of emotion.

The goal is not the perfect animation but one that awakens something in the viewer, so let’s talk about those voices that take narrative risks rather than aiming for the perfect pixel of more traditional animation.

Arco (Ugo Bienvenu) — The Crystal of the Feature Film 

Arco took home the most coveted award, THE CRYSTAL, because it’s an anomaly. It blends the visual style of 1970s Franco-Belgian comics with a contemporary technical fluidity that seems to defy rotoscoping.

Set in a future where time travel is a form of tourism for the privileged, the film follows a boy who gets trapped in the past. It is a cold yet moving meditation on determinism and the loss of innocence. And we simply couldn’t love it more when it comes to a coming-of-age story.

Bienvenu uses clean lines and flat shadows reminiscent of Moebius, but applied to a 3D environment with cel shading so refined that it eliminates any sense of “computer-generated” imagery. The use of color is narrative: saturated for the sterile future and earthy for the “real” past. We’ve reached a point where animated films and live-action films compete on equal footing with complex stories; only the formal way of telling them differs.

Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake (Irene Iborra)

Last year’s biggest surprise in stop-motion animation comes from Spain, proving that tactile imagery remains the best vehicle for deep empathy and captivating us with this story.

Based on the novel by Maite Carranza, it tells the story of a family’s eviction through the eyes of a young girl, capturing that balance of innocence and raw reality. It is not a dry social drama; it is a work of magical realism where buildings tremble at the fear of their inhabitants. Exciting, harsh, and moving. How beautiful what is being created in our country.

The character design eschews the realism of Laika (which, incidentally, is one of our favorite production companies—we’re talking about that rawness we saw in CORALINE)

The textures are rough, and imperfections in the animation of fabrics and hair are deliberately left in. This reinforces the sense of “fragility” experienced by the protagonist; the world seems as though it’s about to fall apart in the animators’ hands—a sensation we already saw with Irene in CITOPLASMAS.

The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius)

The director of *The Artist* makes his animation debut with a fable about the Holocaust that steers clear of emotional exploitation to focus on the beauty of the artwork. It’s something we never imagined, and it has left us spellbound.

A dark fairy tale about a couple of woodcutters who find a baby thrown from a death train. It is a story about the instinct to care in the face of the machinery of hate.

Inspired by Gustave Doré’s engravings and classical painting, the film uses a traditional 2D pictorial style. It does not seek the extreme fluidity of Disney; it prefers the expressiveness of the line. The snow and the forest are characters in their own right, drawn with a restraint that lends historical weight to every frame. One of the most beautiful films we saw last year, and one that reminds us a bit of ZEPPO, a short film we highly recommend.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZwX-hXwBag4?si=Khno25LXblnVeqMK

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)

 

Zilbalodis proves once again that a single filmmaker can be a one-man army, taking independent 3D to levels of atmosphere that major studios rarely achieve, and that this wordless story has touched our hearts by winning an Oscar.

A cat, a bird, a lemur, and a dog must survive a global flood in a world without humans. It’s pure cinema: there’s no dialogue, just action and reaction. More humanity than in many of the films we might find in fiction. 

It uses a real-time rendering engine (similar to video games) to create a camera that never cuts. The movement is fluid, almost dreamlike, with dynamic lighting that creates a sense of epic scale. It’s the perfect example of how a low budget can become a creative advantage if you have a strong visual vision. It doesn’t try to be perfect either; like life, the secret lies in the imperfection of the story.

Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot) 

The return of the master of claymation who brought us *Mary and Max*—Adam became my favorite filmmaker at the 2024 San Sebastián Film Festival.

A bittersweet tale about a lonely woman who collects snails to cope with the trauma of her family’s separation. It’s dark humor with a huge heart.

It’s an ode to imperfection. Elliot uses clay that retains the animators’ fingerprints. The characters are grotesque, asymmetrical, and deeply human. In a world of AI, this film feels like a hug made of mud; it’s physical, messy, and wonderfully honest.

The potatoes!!!! That’s the cry you need to hear.

Naturalness is winning out. We’re moving away from hyperrealism by embracing the nature of what’s drawn or sculpted.

Spanish animation making its mark at ANNECY

We’ve already highlighted IRENE IBORRA’s feature film OLIVIA AND THE INVISIBLE EARTHQUAKE, but this undoubtedly comes from an industry that continues to consolidate, making it clear that Spanish animation is here to stay.

PABLO BERGER’s ROBOT DREAMS—which, to this day, we still haven’t recovered from having our hearts stolen by it in that way—won at ANNECY (contrechamp) and later secured an Oscar nomination. A universal love story.

UNICORN WARS also competed at Annecy, standing out for its anti-war message and unique animation style. Dark and symbolic, it was aimed at an adult audience—a trend that continued with DECORADO.

Animation in our country diverges from what comes out of the United States, and that is why it stands out—because it has its own identity.

Under the umbrella of ANIMATION FROM SPAIN (ICEX and ICAA), they set up their booths (often the largest at the festivals), where more than 60 companies and 100 professionals from our country participated.

In this context, ALBA SOTORRA once again stood out, presenting PINK PUNK DELTA, her new and ambitious production that aims to explore music once again—in this case, cyberpunk trends and aesthetics.

We also highlight Bitxo (a short film by Lau Maquedano) and Violeta (a series by Paula Abreu), which stood out in the sessions focused on Basque talent and gender perspectives—creators we don’t want to lose track of.

Spain has become the third European country with the highest volume of animation production, and at Annecy 2025 it was confirmed that Spanish stop-motion (led by studios such as Citoplasmas and Cornelius Films) is at the global artistic forefront.

And we want to continue making our mark.

María Abad

Cultural critic and audiovisual columnist

Specializing in film and the creative industry