By Katie Bailey and Sadhana Bharanidharan

It’s been a busy week at the 2023 Annecy Animation Festival, which will present 468 film screenings when all’s said and done. 

With Mexico in the spotlight this year, Tuesday featured a discussion with award-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who weighed in on the expansive storytelling potential of animation, and how the format has proven to be lucrative—most recently demonstrated by Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse dominating this month’s box office. 

On Wednesday, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri received the festival’s “Golden Ticket” lifetime accreditation, presented by musician Pharrell Williams. Meledandri—who also previewed his prodco’s upcoming feature Migration—was recognized for helping to boost the European screen industry. (Illumination’s films are produced primarily in Paris.) 

But challenges also persist in the region’s thriving market, highlighted by a Wednesday morning press conference hosted by the Federation of Animation Producers in Europe. Now numbering 20 member countries after welcoming Estonia, Greece and Portugal into its ranks, the federation advocates on behalf of animation producers, focusing on the need for animation-specific language in the regional content quotas for global streamers that are now emerging across Europe.

From left to right: Pablo Jordi, Dirk Beinhold, Philippe Alessandri, Ivan Agenjo and Moe Honan.

Panelists Philippe Alessandri (Watch Next Media, France), Moe Honan (Moetion Films, Ireland), Pablo Jordi (Pikkukala, Finland), Ivan Agenjo (Peekaboo Animation, Spain) and Dirk Beinhold (Akkord Film Produktion, Germany) pointed to a lack of local animation commissions from these platforms, and expressed concern about the long-term damage this may cause. 

Their goal is to encourage more countries to include animated projects in the new regulatory frameworks and quotas being set up around the world for global streamers. France is currently the only country with such language in its policy, although Italy is currently considering it. 

The group’s concern is that original animated content is declining in the face of high demand for service work. This is threatening to permanently alter the shape and health of the industry, and diminish cultural and artistic heritage. Looking ahead to when the union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS) can next be revised in 2025, the group wants to organize research that explores how original IPs have been affected by the arrival of global streamers, and it’s calling on governments to collect data on content consumption by country in order to measure how audiences are evolving and identify which genres are trending.

Mexico at Annecy: Venues were decked out in official poster art designed by animator/director Jorge R. Gutierrez, spotlighting Mexican culture and folklore.