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B: The Beginning, PIG: The Dam Keeper Poems to Compete at Annecy
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The 2018 Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market revealed its short films selection on March 14 and its TV Films and Commissioned Films selection on March 27.
The first episode of Production I.G and Kazuto Nakazawa's B: The Beginning anime will compete in the TV Films category. In addition, Erick Oh and Tonko House's PIG: The Dam Keeper Poems "Yellow Flower", "Hello Nice to Meet You" United States and Japan collaboration short will also compete in the same category.
The 12-episode B: The Beginning anime series launched on Netflix worldwide on March 2. Hulu Japan produced the 10-episode PIG: The Dam Keeper Poems series, and the streaming service debuted the series in August. The series later aired on NHK-E in Japan starting in November.
In the Short Films category, Ryoji Yamada's "Hunter" short film is screening in competition. The eight-minute short features a hunter who is looking for gossip every night.
Yosuke Tani's "Kaiju Shinwa" ("Quest of the Battling Gods") animated short will compete in the Graduation Short Film category. In the 13-minute 2D computer-animated short, "a God faces off with another of his kind in a magnificent battle that transcends worlds, time and parallel universes."
No Japanese works are competing in the Off-Limits Short Films, Perspectives Short Films, Young Audiences Short Films, and Commissioned Films categories.
The event hasn't yet revealed the full-length films that will screen inside and outside of competition.
Established in 1960, Annecy is the world's oldest and largest animation film festival. This year, it will run from June 11-16 at the French community of the same name.
Last year Lu over the wall won the top "Cristal for a Feature Film" award, the first Japanese film to do so in 22 years. In This Corner of the World and Sawako Kabuki's "Natsu no gero wa huyu no sakana" ("Summer's Puke is Winter's Delight") short film also won awards.
Sources: Animation Business Journal (Link 2, both by Tadashi Sudo)
