Annecy 2009 Official Selection

The selection results are out for the competition programs of Annecy International Animation Festival, taking place from June 8th to 13th this year. The festival that has often been referred to as the Cannes of animation industry, screens about 500 titles each year, selected from thousands of submissions from across the globe. This year, giving the Hungarian animation industry a reason to cheer, as many as five productions from the country have made it into the competitive section: four TV-series and one graduation short.

Eszter Szoboszlay from Kecskemétfilm has made it to the red carpet with an episode of her educational children’s series Head Dwellers: "Neighbouring". Also for the younger audiences, the second competitor from the same studio is an episode from the popular series, Hungarian Folk Tales, "The Wee King", directed by Lajos Nagy.

Also presenting two productions in the TV-competition is the Budapest-based Studio Baestarts. Selected are four episodes of Magdolna Hegyi’s “Nursery Songs”, a children’s series animating well known Hungarian nursery songs; and four episodes of Alexei Alexeev’s miniseries of animals jamming in the forest with improvised musical instruments: Log Jam "The Log", "The Rain", "The Moon", "The Snake". A discreet episode of the program, KJFJ No 5, was already touring world’s festivals in the past year, winning its director a number of audience awards for its simple but hilarious story.

Last but not least, Miklós Mendrei from Moholy Nagy University of Arts will have a chance to present his graduation short, "Alone" on the stage of the 1000-seats Bonlieu main hall in Annecy, which is an occasion one would certainly not want to miss.