Full house for Luxembourg at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival: 6 co-productions in the official selection!
Le Annecy International Animation Film Festival (9 to 15 June 2024) unveils its official selection and includes 5 Luxembourg co-productions in the official competition: SLOCUM AND ME and ANGELO IN THE MYSTERIOUS FOREST for feature films, LIFE IN A CASTLE for television films and OTO'S PLANET and MAMIE LOU for virtual reality works. As for the film FOX AND HARE SAVE THE FORESTIt has been selected for the new "Annecy presents" section (out of competition).
Le Film Fund will be present at International Animation Film Market (MIFA) for 23e Annecy, with a promotional stand hosting some fifteen Luxembourg animation companies (production, studios and service providers) and will be celebrating Luxembourg animation as part of this major annual meeting for all professionals in the global animation industry. The Minister for Culture, Eric Thill, will be coming to Annecy to meet Luxembourg animation experts as well as students from the BTS (from the Lycée des Arts et Métiers) and a Bachelor's degree (from the University of Luxembourg) in animation.
SLOCUM AND ME co-produced by Stéphan Roelants (Melusine Productions) and directed by Jean-François Laguionie.
The film is a majority Luxembourg co-production between Melusine Productions (Stéphan Roelants) and JPL Films in France. Jean-François Laguionie is the last of the great masters of French animation, and with SLOCUM he takes stock of the themes of his filmography. After THE PRINCE'S JOURNEYis 2e a film by the French director that the Film Fund Luxembourg is supporting. Virtually all the film's animation was produced in Luxembourg by the teams at Studio 352 involving just over forty artists and technicians over a production period of almost 30 months, including Denis Lambert (1er assistant director), Pascal Gérard (artistic director of the sets) and Cédric Gervais (3D supervisor). The sound post-production was carried out entirely by the studios Philophon.
ANGELO IN THE MYSTERIOUS FOREST co-produced by Laurent Witz (Zeilt Productions) and directed by Vincent Paronnaud & Alexis Ducord.
The film is a co-production between Luxembourg and France. The film-making process took around two years and involved a team of around fifty people from Zeilt studio. Key positions such as production manager (Alice Backscheider), animation supervisor (Michael Tenner Wijaya Oei) and props and set modelling supervisor (Philippe Steinkamp) were filled by the Luxembourg studio team. The film's music was recorded at the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg by the 55-strong Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gast Waltzing. The sound design, sound editing and mixing were carried out in the studios of Philophon.
LIFE AT THE CHATEAU is a 6-episode mini-series co-produced in Luxembourg by Melusine Productions (Stéphan Roelants) with France and produced by Nathaniel H'Limi and Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat. 35 people from Studio 352 worked on the series for 7 months, in particular on the line and colour sets, posing and animation.
FOX AND HARE SAVE THE FOREST is the feature film selected for the new out-of-competition section of the Annecy Presents festival. The film is a Benelux co-production made in the studios of Doghouse in Differdange, which involved some fifty animation professionals at various stages of production (modelling, texture, 3D layout, 3D animation) over a period of almost 2 years. The film's music was composed by André Dziezuk and part of the sound post-production was handled by Philophon Studios, including the mixing (Michel Schillings). Last February, the film was in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) and was shown in its Luxembourg version (produced in the Jang Linster studios) at the Luxembourg City Film Festival.
The poster for the VR competition was also unveiled. Out of 102 projects from 34 countries, 10 works were selected, including 2 from Luxembourg:
OTO'S PLANET is an animated VR work initiated and produced by the company Skill Lab (Julien Becker) and directed by Luxembourger Gwenael François, whose 2e virtual reality project. After ERRANCE, he wrote and directed Oto's planet, working in Luxembourg with Zeilt studio (Foetz) for animation and motion capture, Mad Trix (Differdange) for sound design, DPT. in Canada for integration and 3D, and Small Creative in France for artistic research and the original music composed by Chapelier Fou. The project received development and production support from the Luxembourg-Canada initiative.
MAMIE LOU is an interactive VR animation experience created by Isabelle Andreani. The company Skill Labin co-production with Small Creative (France), supervised the implementation of the animation and motion capture at Zeilt studio (Foetz).
In addition to the official selections, the ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED by Zaven Najjar, co-produced by Adrien Chef and Paul Thiltges (Paul Thiltges Distributions), as well as the ITO MEIKYU by Boris Labbé, co-produced by Govinda Van Maele and Gilles Chanial (Les Films Fauves) will be presented in the "WORK IN PROGRESS" category, allowing visitors to experience the manufacturing process first-hand.
