Chile will land at the 59th Animation Film Festival of Annecy. Chile will arrive with two audiovisual productions at the 59th Annecy International Animation Film Festival, held annually in France and considered the most important in the world in that category. The event will take place between June 10 and 15 and has been characterized as exposing the current and future trends of the animated audiovisual sector. This year the national participation will be represented by a feature film and a series in the official competitions of the contest.
On the one hand, the national feature film will be part of the "Contrechamp" category, a competition that will have eight titles. Among them, Homeless, a film by the directors José Ignacio Navarro, Jorge Campusano and Santiago O'Ryan. Produced by Monday CineTv and Fabula, the film tells the story of a trio of self-employed bums of the system whose camp on the street collapses after cyber-terrorist nerds steal all the money from bank accounts, leaving the world population on the street. The bums will decide to recover the money to return everything to normal and thus recover their beloved home.
The film lasts 90 minutes, is a black comedy in digital 2D format and was selected as one of the 205 finalists among 3,018 films from 94 countries that applied. The production was financed through CORFO, the Audiovisual Fund CNCA, Ibermedia and the Work Shop of Development Bridging the Gap.
The story was written and directed by José Ignacio Navarro, Jorge Campusano and Santiago O`Ryan and in the production are Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, José Ignacio Navarro, Jorge Campusano and Santiago O'Ryan, while the executive production is charge of Juan Ignacio Correa, Mariane Hartard and Rocío Jadue.
"It was incredible news to know that Homeless had been selected in the official competition of Annecy, which is the most important animation festival in the world, so obviously it is something very important for us and for Chilean animation as well. But it is something that we expected in some way, it’s the result of a long time of work, and somehow one is planning certain things and one of the plans was this, to premiere worldwide in this festival »said Navarro.
On the other hand, the only Latin American series selected in the television content competition was Petit, directed by the Chilean Bernadette Ojeda. The series tells the story of Petit, a 5-year-old boy who interprets everything in his own way. In each chapter he will face an everyday world fact that will lead him to draw imaginative and unexpected conclusions and resolve conflicts in an unforeseen way.
The series was co-produced by NonStop (Argentina), Pakapaka (Argentina) and Señal Colombia and has won several awards, including first place in the Best Animated Latin American Series category at the Chilemonos Festival and Best Latin American Animated Series at the Bit Bang Festival, developed in Argentina.
No matter the importance of this event, Ojeda said that "Annecy is our favorite festival. It is a festival that takes place in a town (...) all the cinemas are showcasing movies and shorts; giant screenings are made in the squares, that is, you can have a picture of what is being done around the world in terms of animation, from very commercial things to very authorial things, all of high quality. In addition, there is a very large market, we go to Annecy and we usually miss everything there is to see because we are in many meetings (...) it is a great moment where many deals can be made, many alliances, so you wait all year to be able to go ».
