Annecy Unveils 2026 LIneup with Ricky Gervais, Mike Judge, Brad Bird

Ricky Gervais, Oscar-winning The Incredibles director Brad Bird and the Brothers Quay will be guests of the upcoming Annecy International Film Festival which announced its 2026 lineup on Tuesday. (scroll down for main competition lineups).

They join previously announced attendee King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge, who will receive the festival’s Honorary Cristal, as well as Laika President and CEO Travis Knight, who will be attendance with a special exhibition devoted to his upcoming film Wildwood.

Billed as the biggest animation festival in the world, Annecy welcomed a record 18,000 guests in 2025, more than 6,500 of them animation professionals.

Unfolding from June 21 to 27 in the French lakeside town of Annecy, the festival is running slightly later this year due to the G7 Summit taking place earlier in the month in the relatively nearby city of Evian.

Stop-motion maestros the Brothers Quay, aka Stephen and Timothy Quay, whose work is beloved by the likes of Peter Greenaway and Christopher Nolan, are also being feted with the festival’s Honorary Cristal.

Ricky Gervais will be in attendance to give a masterclass as creator and director of Netflix’s Alley Cats, the adult animation following a group of feral cats who seek companionship while ruminating on everyday life, accompanied by a sneak peek of the first two episodes.

Bird will take to the stage as part of the annual Next on Netflix showcase to talk about his long-gestated passion project sci-fi detective story Ray Gunn, featuring Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Waits in the voice cast

In the same showcase, showrunners Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan will unveil a preview of next year’s Ghostbusters series. Other Special Events include an Aardman showcase looking at the studio’s history and future productions.

The U.S. studios will be out in force.

Walt Disney Animation Studios will unveil never-before seen footage of Josie Trinidad and Jason Hand’s fantasy coming-of-age tale Hexed featuring Hailee Steinfeld in the voice cast.

Pixar will go behind the scenes of Enrico Casarosa’s upcoming Venice-set tale Gatto, about a cat on the run from the local feline mob bosses, and also a new short film from the director and Lou Hamou-Lhadj.

Warner Bros. Animation will present the first part of Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall as well as its latest Looney Tunes short Daffy Season and a first look at its upcoming The Cat in the Hat movie which is due out in November.

Other Special Events include a sneak preview of the first two episodes of The Ghost in the Shell series reboot; Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado’s Forgotten Island; Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper; North by Northwest-inspired Children of Liberty produced by Didier Brunner, and Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie.

Official Selection

Close to 50 animated features will screen in Official Selection, which kicks off with the previously announced opening film Minions & Monsters.

Out of the eleven films in the main competition, world premieres include The Sunrise File, inspired by Serge and Beate Klarsfeld’s mission to bring Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie to justice; Alzheimer’s-themed Tangles and World War Two-Singapore-set The Violonist. (scroll down for full list and director credits)

China is out in force with Chinese $215m box office hit Nobody and contemporary tale Tana about a young woman who leaves Shanghai to be by her father’s bedside in Inner Mongolia.

A number of the Annecy Cristal d’Or contenders will have previously played in Cannes including Lucy Lost and Iron Boy which debut in its Official Selection as well as Viva Carmen! and We Are Aliens which are due to play in Directors’ Fortnight and In Waves, which opens Critics’ Week. Further contenders include GKIDS-acquired Decorado about a mouse in a midlife crisis.

Another 11 titles will be showcased in the Contrechamp competition focused on original and independently-minded fare.

The selection opens with Taiwanese work Welcome to the Dollhouse about YouTuber Princess Maria who sets out to uncover the secrets of Madame Dolly, a sorceress who can turn lifeless dolls into human beings.

The lineup also includes Beñat Betia and Elio Quiroga’s Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope, about the true of story of the Winnipeg, a cargo ship chartered by Pablo Neruda in 1939 to ship 2,200 refugees from the Spanish Civil War living in limbo in France to a new life in Chile; Takahashi Wataru’s anime The Obsessed and coming of age tale Blaise, which debuts in Cannes Critics’ Week.

Making Of, Market & La Cité Inauguration

Outside of the Special Events and screening program, other popular sidebars include the Making Of section, which includes deep dives into two new Adult Swim series: President Curtis, from the producers of Rick & Morty, and My Two Cars, an animated comedy by Dan Licata and Joe Pera.

The previously announced hot ticket Work in Progress lineup will showcase 12 upcoming features, three series and one immersive project, with the movies including Baahubali: The Eternal War, Snoopy Unleashed and Steps.

Alongside the festival, the International Animation Film Market will mark its 41st edition with more than 975 exhibiting companies as well a program of talks and showcases. Topics on the table include cross IP exploitation; the crossover between video-games and the animation world; the rising African animation sector and the impact of AI.

In a special event this year, the 2026 edition will be immediately preceded by the opening of the festival’s new year-round hub, La Cité internationale du cinéma d’animation.

The public-focused center features an animation museum, specific spaces for temporary exhibitions, a 332-seat cinema , cultural and artistic educational workshops and an artist residency.

The 2026 Feature Competition Lineups

Competition

Viva Carmen!
By Sébastien Laudenbach
(France)

Iron Boy
By Louis Clichy
France, Belgium

Decorado
By Alberto Vazquez
Spain

The Sunrise File
By Rupert Wyatt, Émilie Phuong
France, Luxembourg

In Waves
By Phuong Mai
France, Belgium

Lucy Lost
By Olivier Clert
France

Nobody
By Shui Yu
China

Tana
By Ji Zhao, Ke Er Zhu, Ying Shuang Zhou
China

Tangles
By Leah Nelson
Canada, U.S.

The Violinist
By Ervin Han, Raúl García
Singapore, Spain, Italy

We Are Aliens
By Kohei Kadowaki
Japan, France

Contrechamp Competition

58th
By Carl Joseph
Philippines

A New Dawn
By Yoshitoshi Shinomiya
Japan

Blaise
By Dimitri Planchon, Jean-Paul Guigue
France

O filho da puta
By Érica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Tania Anaya, Sávio Leite
Brazil

Mu Yi and the Handsome General
By Julien Chheng
France

Pelelui: Guernica of Paradise
By Goro Kuji
Japan

The Orbit of Minor Satellites
By Christopher Sullivan
Japan

Spacetime Chronicles
By Stefano Bertelli
Italy

The Obsessed
By Wataru Takahashi, Yuki Yoshida
Japan

Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope
By Beñat Beitia, Elio Quiroga
Spain, Chile, Argentina

Welcome to Dolly’s House
By Seven Ych, Rady Fu, Tree Muta
Taiwan