Annecy

Yeah, so this is actually a Singapore animated project.

And in fact, it's the first Singapore movie who got to be at Annecy in the main competition.

And...

It's interesting in general that this year at NSC we got a lot of movies about World War II, but they were all like from different perspectives.

And the movie, you know, basically, so the movie, you know, basically, you know, create this mini story between them to, you know, show all the atrocities of the war at the time from their perspective and how life was there from their perspective.

And it goes a little bit after the war, to not spoil too much, but also so, you know, because this movie is almost have a fourth act where you think the main story end and it's still going on for like 15 minutes with another, like, epilogue to some of the characters.

But, you know, as I mentioned, this year at Annecy, they have a few movies about World War II.

There is a movie about the perspective of people who were escaping Spain and going to South America.

Yeah, I mean, it's taken a little bit of time for this film to reach local viewers.

It originally premiered back at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France in 2024.

That festival is kind of like the Cannes of animated film festivals.

And then it went on to screen at the Tokyo Film Festival and it sold to a whole bunch of countries in Europe and Asia.

I'm so glad we're talking about this.

And not acting for At Leica, it's interesting, I got in a great conversation with somebody from Aardman at Annecy this year, and we were talking about the similarities and the differences in our companies, right? And there's acting for animation historically, which is almost like theater acting, where you're acting for the back seats of the theater, right? And then there's acting for the camera, which is a much more subtle, much more nuanced thing.

not blinking characters all the time.

That's because it's such a trick for animators.

I experienced this shift firsthand.

When I first come attended Annecy and MIPHA, it was 2004, you know, arranging the meeting for Japanese animation project required great effort.

Today, Japanese anime has significant presence at this event, and it's actively sought after by buyers, producers, and distribution worldwide.

Another major change is that the influence now flow in both directions.

So if I had to summarize the change in one sentence, it would be this: When I entered the industry, Japanese anime was viewed as something separate from mainstream animation.

Today, it has become a part of global animation language.

And also drawing from this, from what you just said and your experience, I'm interesting-- I'm interested in knowing how you think that international licensing like as what, what working in international licensing has taught you about how different markets, different countries respond, uh, to comic-based animation, to manga-based animation, and how, yeah, since we're here in Annecy, how you see different countries responding, um, maybe in the past, also in the, and now in the present.

Yeah.

They're still trying to get the feature that was at Sony off the ground.

I know they were at Annecy kind of drumming up support.

And yeah, he's got some other stuff that's very exciting that, you know.

I can't talk about her.

But even when we introduce some of those elements, like we have these tables that do some storytelling around Hoka, but what's in the table is a dirty old shoe from Jean-Luc, right? Because that's where Chamonix, that's where...

Annecy was where he lived and where Hoka was formed and the ideation, the development of it in the mountains around Chamonix.

And so it makes perfect sense to have the inspiration come from a trip to UTMB and then to kind of have some literally old, dirty, worn, very worn shoes from Jean-Luc that say, hey, this was an early prototype.

This is where this came from.