Singapore Animation ‘The Violinist’ Wins Best Film At Annecy
Louis Clichy’s French-Belgian 'Iron Boy' was awarded three prizes at the festival, including the Jury Award.
Ervin Han and Raul Garcia’s The Violinist was awarded the Cristal for Best Feature Film at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 12-27) in France.
The Singapore-led co-production follows a Spanish reporter investigating the lives of two young violinists in Singapore in 1941, whose dreams are shattered by the Japanese invasion of Malaysia during the Second World War.
The film is produced by Han for Singapore’s Robot Playground Media, Garcia and Takafumi Yuki for Japan’s Throne Inc, Paloma Mora for Spain’s TV On Producciones and Cristiano Bortone for Italy’s Altri Occhi. France TV Distribution is handling international sales.
Meanwhile, Louis Clichy’s Iron Boy took three prizes at the festival – the Jury Award, the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution and the feature film Audience Award. The film, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes film festival, follows a 10-year-old boy suffering from a spinal condition who is forced to wear an iron corset.
Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Guigue’s Blaise won the Grand Prix in the Contrechamp competition, which focuses on works pushing the boundaries of traditional animation, with Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s A New Dawn taking the Jury Award in this section. Blaise premiered in the Acid sidebar at this year’s Cannes, while Japan-France co-production A New Dawn premiered at the Berlinale.
Decorado, from Spanish director Alberto Váquez, about an unemployed mouse suffering an existential crisis, won the Paul Grimault Award. Don Hertzfeldt took the Cristal for Best Short Film for experimental title Paper Trail, depicting a life seen through paper.
Guests at this year’s edition of Annecy included Travis Knight, Brad Bird, Ricky Gervais, SS Rajamouli and Peter Lord. Rajamouli was presenting a work-in-progress of his animated film Baahubali: The Eternal War, on which he is a producer with Ishan Shukla directing.
The festival was struck by tragedy this year as young Mexican animator Luis de la Rosa died after being struck by a train near Rue Aristide-Briand, just a few kilometres from the festival’s main venue. De la Rosa had worked on features such as Space Jam: A New Legacy and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and was attending Annecy’s Mifa industry platform to pitch original series Ash Raid World.
Next year’s Annecy has been scheduled for June 13-19 and will have a special focus on Colombian animation.
ANNECY ANIMATION FESTIVAL 2026:
Cristal for Best Film: The Violinist, dirs: Ervin Han, Raul Garcia (Singapore, Spain, Italy)
Jury Award: Iron Boy, dir: Louis Clichy (France, Belgium)
Paul Grimault Award: Decorado, dir: Alberto Vazquez (Spain)
Contrechamp Grand Prix: Blaise, dirs: Dimitri Planchon, Jean-Paul Guigue (France)
Contrechamp Jury Award: A New Dawn, dir: Yoshitoshi Shinomiya (Japan, France)
Gan Foundation Award for Distribution: Iron Boy, dir: Louis Clichy (France, Belgium)
Audience Award: Iron Boy, dir: Louis Clichy (France, Belgium)
