Over the past few years, the Annecy International Animated Film Festival has evolved from being the world’s largest animation film festival into being both a film festival and a San Diego Comic-Con-style event with sneak peeks, exclusive previews, and panels devoted to Hollywood studio projects.
Annecy benefits by taking place in June, a month before Comic-Con, and Hollywood studios are increasingly showing off their A-list animation projects at the festival in southern France before previewing them to San Diego audiences. The enthusiastic crowds at Annecy, which are noticeably free of fanboys and comprised almost entirely of artists, students, and industry professionals, can make the experience of premiering a project there very special; last year the Disney short Feast received a foot-stomping ovation that rocked the entire theater.