Animation is Film (AIF) and its partner, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, announced the seventh edition of the U.S.-based festival is set for this fall October 18-20 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood. Founded in 2017, AIF celebrates animated films from all over the world, embracing the highest aspirations of the medium as an artistic cinematic art form on par with live action.
AIF is produced by GKIDS in partnership with Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Major industry and media sponsors include: ASIFA-Hollywood, Cartoon Network Studios, Crunchyroll, DreamWorks Animation, ELMA, Fathom Events, Illumination, LAIKA, Locksmith Animation, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Paramount Animation, Pixar Animation Studios, Shout! Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Warner Bros. Animation.
In 2023, the festival opened with Studio Ghibli’s Academy Award winner "The Boy and The Heron", the latest film from legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Additionally, the festival presented new animated feature films from Asia, Europe, South America, and North America, and included special presentations, retrospectives, and short film programs with multiple sold out audiences.
Earlier editions of AIF also showcased highly selective programming, which included a special screening of Oscar® winner Guillermo del "Toro’s Pinocchio" (2022), Oscar nominees "Robot Dreams" (2023), "The Breadwinner" (2017), "Mirai" (2018), and "I Lost My Body" (2019), "Flee" (2021), a special screening of the Academy Award®-winning short film "Hair Love2 (2019) and a look atas a work-in-progress for Disney’s Oscar winner "Encanto" (2021).
Animation is Film fills a gap in the U.S. market with an established world-class animation festival on par with the major events in Europe and Asia, and based in the world capital of animated filmmaking—Los Angeles. Embracing the highest aspirations of animation as a cinematic art form akin to live action, the festival is an international advocate for filmmakers who push the boundaries of their work to the fullest range of the medium’s artistic expression.