The 2025 Edition of the Annecy Animation Festival drew to a close on Saturday night with the big Cristal awards ceremony during which French director Ugo Bienvenu’s time-traveling fantasy Arco won the top prize for Best Animated Feature. The fantasy adventure follows the adventures of a young boy named Arco who travels from the year 2932 but gets trapped in 2075 where he meets a young girl who helps him get back home. The film, which is produced by actress Natalie Portman with Sophie Mas, debuted at the Cannes Festival and has already been picked up by Neon for N. American distribution.
Japanese director Yasuhiro Aoki’s wild and unpredictable sci-fi fantasy ChaO, produced by the acclaimed Studio 4°C (Poupelle of Chimney Town, Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko, All You Need Is Kill) was the winner of the Jury Prize. Indie U.S. distributor GKIDS will release the film in theaters later this year. The imaginative film, which will be released in Japan on August 15, follows the unlikely love affair between a shipbuilder and a mermaid princess.
The Jury Special Mention Prize aka The Paul Grimault Award was given to Japanese helmer Momoko Seto’s post-apocalyptic movie Dandelion’s Odyssey, which also closed the Cannes’ Critics’ Week. (Read our interview with the director here).
The Audience Prize went to the popular Little Amelie or the Character of Rain, by French directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han. The movie, which is also picked up by GKIDS, is based on the autobiographical novel by Amelie Nothom, about her days as a young girl growing up in Japan.
The jurors awarded the top prize in the shorts category to Pierre-Luc Granjon’s The Night Boots, which also won the Audience Prize. U.S. director Michael Granberry received the Jury Prize for his innovative black-and-white stop-motion short Les Bêtes (The Beasts).
David Lowery’s An Almost Christmas Story (produced by Alfonso Cuaron) which premiered on Disney+ last November won the Jury Prize for Best TV Special.
The political turmoil and news of human war casualties in Gaza, Israel, Iran and Ukraine made a palpable impact on the mood of the closing night’s awards ceremony. Several of the award recipients and jurors mentioned the terrible state of affairs in war-ravaged countries around the world. Variety reports that Michael Granberry, who won the Jury Award for his short Les Betes, mentioned the role that animation can play during dark days: “This art form attracts people who carry a very unique, beautiful fire in them that shines a light that the world desperately, desperately needs right now. Do not be afraid of the dark, the sickness of hate, because we are the cure,” he said.
Jury member Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi (The Siren) noted: ”Sometimes, being part of the cinema family, the animation family, is not enough to make the changes, the significant changes that need to be made. Sometimes we have to go beyond the films that we make. We have to become like the heroes and heroines of our films, become bigger than ourselves, become better people, and try to make changes differently in the real world.
“There are quite a few conflicts ongoing. One of them is particularly monstrous. That is the ongoing genocide in Gaza. For one year, I worked for Fatma Hassouna. She was killed two months ago in an Israeli airstrike targeting her house with all her family. I had made a promise to her to go to Gaza to meet her once the war was over. I haven’t been able to keep that promise, but I’ll try to do something that would be meaningful, because we need to break this blockade and to stop this war.”
A record 18,200 badge holders from 118 countries attended the 2025 edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and MIFA market.
Here is the complete list of this year’s winners:
Features
Cristal for a Feature Film: Arco (Ugo Bienvenu, France)
Jury Award: ChaO (Yasuhrio Aoki, Japan)
Paul Grimault Award [Jury’s Special Mention]: Dandelion’s Odyssey (Momoko Seto, France/Belgium)
Gand Foundation Award for Distribution: Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake (Irene Iborro Rizo, Spain/France/Belgium/Chile/Switzerland)
Audience Award: Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (Mailys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, France)
Contrechamp Grand Prize: Endless Cookie (Seth Scriver, Pete Scriver, Canada)
Contrechamp Jury Award: The Square (Ki Bo-Sol, S. Korea)
Shorts:
Cristal for a Short Film: The Night Boots (Pierre-Luc Granjon, France)
Jury Award for Short Film: Les Betes (Michael Granberry, U.S.)
Alexeïeff – Parker Award (Jury Mention): Sappho (Rosana Urbes, Brazil)
Off-Limits Award: The Graffiti (Ryo Orikasa, Japan)
Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film: Zwermen (Janneke Swinkels, Tim Frijsinger, Netherlands/Belgium)
Audience Award: The Night Boots (Pierre-Luc Granjon, France)
TV Projects
Cristal for a TV Production: Christo: The Civilized Barbarian. “Hunting Party” (Shaddy Safadi, U.S.)
Jury Award for a TV Series: Lena’s Farm “Volles Nest” (Elena Walf, Germany)
Jury Award for a TV Special: An Almost Christmas Story (David Lowery, U.S.)
Audience Award: Freaked Out “Major Decision” (Theo Grosjean, Mothy Richard, Belgium/France)
Commissioned Films:
Cristal for a Commissioned Film: Naive New Beaters, Star Feminine Band “Ye Kou Si Kuo” (Lola Lefevre, France)
Jury Award for a Commissioned Film: Desi Oon (Suresh Eritay, India)
Cristal for a Graduation Film: Zootrope (Lena Martinez, France)
Jury Award for a Graduation Film: Between the Gaps (Martin Bonnin, France)
Lotte Reiniger Award: Q (Masataka Kihara, Japan)
Cristal for the Best VR Work: Fragile Home (Ondřej Moravec, Victoria Lopukhina, Czech Republic)
The list of Annecy’s special prize winners announced yesterday is here. For the complete list of this year’s winners, visit annecyfestival.com.
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