The Main Event of the Animation World

A still from Baahubali: The Eternal War

Welcome! It’s a new Sunday issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, and here’s the plan:

• 1. On Annecy 2026.
• 2. Animation newsbits.
• 3. The last word.

Now, let’s go!

1. Annecy in summary

The Annecy Festival happened this past week. If you keep up with the news in animation, it was hard to miss. It’s the biggest event in the animation world, and it gets bigger each year.

It’s held in France, in the Alps, right near the lovely Lake Annecy. And, at the 2026 edition, there were 19,100 accredited attendees (a high) from 118 countries.1

Annecy is a film festival that doubles as a venue for business. Plus, increasingly, it gets compared to Comic-Con: it’s “become dominated by big companies” in recent years, to quote the journalist Kambole Campbell. That was visible at Annecy 2026, whose opening ceremony hosted the premiere of the third Minions movie.2 The week’s headline stories were often Hollywood-centric.

Pixar showed Gatto, its stylized CG film — director Enrico Casarosa went over its illustrative look and use of frame-rate modulation. The new DreamWorks feature Forgotten Island met with an extended standing ovation. Disney was there; Warner’s slate was massive. The list went on.

Enrico Casarosa on stage to talk about Gatto, courtesy of the Annecy Festival

“There are more and more [American] studios coming to Annecy, wanting to be in Annecy,” said Marcel Jean, the festival’s artistic director.3 As he told Le Film Français during the week:

We must recognize that, for these large studios, Annecy is a “safe space.” They find an audience of enthusiasts and connoisseurs who have a relationship with animation that is both passionate and respectful. In addition, certain filmmakers whose names don’t have a particular resonance with the press or public at the major general-interest festivals are welcomed like stars at Annecy because all of our spectators know them. … Also, many participants have a real influence on the films’ trajectories. The…