The Rabbi’s Cat claws victory at Annecy

by Fabien Lemercier

14/06/2011 - French duo Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux won the Best Feature Crystal for The Rabbi’s Cat [trailer] (see news) at the Annecy Animated Film Festival, which closed last weekend after bringing together over 7,000 participants from 70 countries.

Produced by Autochenille Productions, the film was co-produced by France 3 Cinéma and pre-bought by Canal + and Ciné+ (formerly known as CinéCinéma). Sold internationally by TF1 International, the film was launched in French theatres on June 1 by UGC Distribution, attracting 173,000 viewers in its first week on a 243-print run.

The jury comprising French producer Marc de Pontavice, his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiro Shimizu, and musician-writer-director Mathias Malzieu awarded a special mention to Keiichi Hara’s Colorful, which also nabbed the Audience Award.

Among the short films, the top winner was French director Patrick Jean’s Pixels, while the Special Jury Prize went to Blu’s Italian film Big Bang Big Boom. Polish production scooped two honours: the Jean-Luc Xiberras Debut Film Award for Kamil Polak’s The Lost Town of Switez (co-produced by France, Canada, Switzerland and Denmark) and a special mention for Damian Nenow’s Paths of Hate.

(Translated from French)