16/06/2014 - The unmissable international rendezvous for the world of animated film also took stock of the relevant strengths and weaknesses of the sector in France

The Cristal for a Feature Film and the Audience Award at the 38th Annecy International Animated Film Festival (see the article) have gone to Brazilian film The Boy and the World (O menino e o mundo), by Alê Abreu, which will be distributed in France on 8 October by Les Films du Préau. The Jury Award was given to the American feature Cheatin', and the Jury Distinction was bestowed upon the Japanese title Giovanni no Shima.

European production caught up when it came to the short-film competition, which gave the top prize to Man on the Chair by Dahee Jeong, a co-production between France (Sacrebleu Productions) and South Korea. The Jury Award was given to the German-Swiss short Patch by Gerd Gockell, while the Franco-Swiss co-production Hasta Santiago by Mauro Carraro won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film and the Sacem Award for Original Music. Lastly, the jury awarded two Distinctions, including to La testa tra le nuvole by Italy’s Roberto Catani. For its part, the audience gave its prize to La petite casserole d'Anatole by French director Eric Montchaud. Also of note in the graduation-film competition was the triumph of The Bigger Picture by Daisy Jacobs (NFTS - National Film and Television School).

The CNC made good use of the MIFA (International Animation Film Market) to unveil a study on French animation that, among other things, particularly confirmed the genre’s international potential. It highlighted the fact that 13 French animated films have taken over one million admissions abroad over the last decade; during this period, French productions in the animated genre recorded 54.7% of their admissions outside the country’s borders. At the French box office, animation is also still a safe bet (representing 5% of the previously unreleased films that came out in 2013 and 14.4% of takings).

On the other hand, it’s orange alert on the production side of things, with a mere six French animated features approved in 2013 (as against 12 in 2012). The French animation producers’ union, Syndicat des producteurs français d’animation, particularly underlined the fall in the investment made by TV channels and would like to see, among other things, an increase in the tax credit in order to give a break to a genre that is more expensive to produce than live-action fiction (with an average budget of €11.97 million for a French animated feature, as against €5.23 million for a French production in all genres combined). Lastly, the inclusion of a reduced rate of €4 for the under-14s by the country’s movie theatres, which has been in place since the start of 2014 (see news), is still the subject of heated debate, with certain distributors maintaining that the reduced takings are not offset by the increase in attendance levels for that age group, which could, in the future, have an impact on the total number of commitments they make to French animation productions. Watch this space...

(Translated from French)