Annecy Gets Bigger

... and bigger again.

... France’s thriving Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival, a Mecca for animation companies and creatives from Hollywood and the world over, which just doesn’t stop growing.

In just one sign, its International Animation Film Market (MIFA) will add an extra day, kicking in June 13 and moving from three to four days. MIFA accredited delegate numbers were tracking at 2,900 by last Friday, already up on the final 2016 tally go 2,850. ... Driven by the increase in animation output in most parts of the world, including Africa, ... delegate numbers have now grown 13 years in a row, since 2005, casting MIFA as a metaphor for the international animation scene at large and one of the most robustly-growing industry events in Europe. ...

The thing of it is, animation thrives around the globe. We Americans get the big theatrical blockbusters from U.S. and Canadian studios, but there is a plethora of CG and traditional features, created on much smaller budgets than those of the Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks persuasions, that get made at various geographic locations on the globe.

Those features circulate through South America, Africa, Europe, Russia and Asia, and many of them turn tidy profits. (You'll see them here on the internet or smaller cable systems, usually re-dubbed into English.) Then there's ever-expanding television content, animation for Subscription Video on Demand, etc., etc.

So it's not surprising that Annecy is growing. Animation continues to thrive. It's not the small side show it used to be, back in the quaint days of pencils and paper.