UK filmmaker Joanna Quinn paid tribute to Gaza animator Haneen Koraz as she received the Annecy International Animation Film Festival’s Honorary Cristal at its opening ceremony on Sunday evening.
The Bafta-winning and three-time The Canterbury Tales and Affairs of the Art Oscar-nominated director praised Koraz’s work in the Gaza Strip spearheading women-run animation workshops for children.
“One day, she’ll be stood here, holding one of these, hint, hint,” she continued, referring to her Cristal award. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the kids could come here and watch their films.”
Quinn’s was speaking amid growing international criticism of Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory – aimed at annihilating Islamist militant group Hamas in response to its October 7, 2023 attacks and retrieving Israeli hostages – which has left more than 54,000 people dead and the population on the brink of starvation.
Speaking to Deadline afterwards at the opening night party, Quinn revealed she has just launched an initiative entitled “To Gaza, With Love: A Global Anijam”, inviting animators and artists from around the world to create 10 to 30-second animated messages of love and support to the Palestinian people.
The contributions will be collected in an online interactive map, which Quinn hopes to premiere via livestream in August with the works then touring animation festivals around the world.
Sunday night’s ceremony also recalled late Gaza artist and photojournalist Fatima Hassouna due to the presence of Iranian-French director Sepideh Farsi in the main feature film jury during alongside composer Pablo Pico (Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds) and György Ráduly, Director of the Film Archive at the National Film Institute Hungary Hungary
Following animated feature The Siren, which opened the Berlinale in 2023, Farsi turned to documentary to capture Hassouna’s life in her film Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk. The film recently played in the ACID line-up in Cannes, having been announced for the parallel section just 24 hours before the young woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home.
On a far lighter note, Quinn recalled her first trip to Annecy in 1987 with short Girls Night Out. The work which introduced her signature figure, Welsh housewife Beryl, on a trip to see a male stripper, won the Special Jury Prize.
“I remember 1987 so well. My film was right at the end of the festival. I spent the whole festival looking at people having fun through misty windows, thinking how do I get in? Anyway, I’m in now,” she recalled.
Quinn also gave a special mention to her life partner, producer and writer Les Mills.
“Animation is a team effort, so I want to say a big thank you to Les, my partner because we’re a team,” she said.
Since 1987, Quinn has continued to garner acclaim with subsequent credits including Bafta-winning and Oscar-nominated children’s 30-minute film Famous Fred (1997/98), adapted from Posy Simmonds’ book about a kitten who becomes a famous singer; Dreams and Desires: Family, which reprised Beryl and won Annecy’s Special Jury Prize, and Oscar and Bafta-nominated Affairs of the Art, also featuring Beryl.
Commenting on the short compilation of extracts from her films which played prior to her receiving her award, Quinn said ruefully to laughter: “Animation is so sad – that was my entire life and it only took, what? a minute? And it takes so long.”
Breaking with tradition, Annecy opened with five animated short this year rather than a single feature film this year.
Canadian Oscar-nominated, stop-motion directorial duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, who work under the banner of Clyde Henry Productions, opened the program with charming rags to riches fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls.
The pair revealed they had finished the film just six days prior to unveiling it in Annecy.
“We’ve been here before and it’s aways been a super good time, but we’ve never had the joy to show you a premiere for a film, which we finished on Monday, six days ago,” said Szczerbowski.
Further titles in the line-up include 9 Million Colours, an underwater tale of unexpected friendship between a predatory shrimp and vulnerable blind fish, by Czech director Bára Anna Stejskalová; Shinya Ohira’s Star Wars: Visions – “Black“, from Japanese anime studio david production, produced by Lucasfilm for Disney+, and French directors Marjorie Caup and Olivier Héraud’s Carcassonne-Acapulco about a flight which takes an absurd turn.
Bulgarian Oscar-nominated director Theodore Ushev, who won Annecy’s Best Short Award in 2020 for he Physics of Sorrow, also returned with timely political allegory Life with an Idiot, adapted from a collection of short stories written by dissident Soviet writer Victor Erofeyev.
“If you follow an imbecile, the chance you’ll become an imbecile is very high; if you admire an idiot, your risk of becoming an idiot is very high,” said Ushev.
He then apologised to the festival’s Artistic Director Marcel Jean, before declaring,“F**k Putin, F**k Trump and F**k Netanyahu” with the audience in the 1000-capacity Grande Salle of the festival’s main Bonlieu Theatre venue erupting into applause.
Annecy gets into its stride on Monday with sneak peaks of Marvel Animation’s Eyes Of Wakanda and Sony Pictures Animation’s Goat as well as the world premiere of Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm and Competition screenings for Olivia And The Invisible Earthquake, Dandelion’s Odyssey, Arco, Little Amélie And The Character Of Rain and The Magnificent Life.
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