The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled 10 new short films for young audiences that will be screened at the annual event taking place from June 8 to 14. 

This year’s selections in the category are: A Walk into the Afterlife, Capybaras, Cardboard, Forevergreen, Sapan, Snow Bear, The Carp and the Child, The Great Annual Party of the Creatures of the Moon, The Night Tunnel and Tsuru. 

Notably, Cardboard (pictured) is the first animated short film to come out of Locksmith Animation in the UK (Ron’s Gone Wrong). It revolves around an overwhelmed single-dad pig who moves his kids to a trailer park and finds joy again in imagining that a cardboard box is a spaceship with them. Locksmith is producing this nine-minute one-off in association with DNEG Animation and Ritzy Animation. 

Also generating buzz is Annecy veteran Doghouse Films’ A Walk into the Afterlife. Distributor Autour de Minuit is selling this four-minute non-dialogue film about a cat who enters the garden of the afterlife in search of a magical flower. Based in Luxembourg, Doghouse is the studio behind 2024 animated feature film Fox and Hare Save the Forest.

And Forevergreen is a 13-minute indie short written and directed by Disney animation supervisor Nathan Englehardt and story artist Jeremy Spears, who worked together on Zootopia. It’s about an orphaned bear cub who finds a home in an evergreen tree, until a hunger for trash gets him in trouble. 

Annecy is planning to announce its feature film selections on April 23 and its full program in May, but a few high-profile screenings have already been teased. Flying Bark Productions, Highly Spirited and distributor ACTF (Australian Children’s Television Foundation) will show an episode of the new series Tales from Outer Suburbia (10 x 22 minutes), in advance of its premiere on ABC Australia and BYUtv in the US. Currently in production, this toon is about two big-city siblings adjusting to a move and experiencing some surreal phenomena in their new suburban hood. Highly Spirited’s Sophie Byrne is producer, and Shaun Tan is both the writer and illustrator of the book anthology the series is based on, and creative director on the TV adaptation.  

An episode from the third season of Disney+ Star Wars anthology series Star Wars: Visions will also screen at this year’s festival. Japan’s David Productions is producing the “Black” segment, which tells the story of a battle from a clone trooper’s perspective. It’s directed by Shinya Ohira, who helped animate several Studio Ghibli films, including Spirited Away. 

And episodes from kids series including Big Lizard (Beakus, Je Suis Bien Content, Bardaf! Productions and Watch Next Media), Baby Bot’s Backyard Tales (Lingokids), Astérix & Obélix (TAT Productions) and The Upside Down River (Dandelooo) have been selected to screen in the TV Films category. 

So far, Annecy has announced 182 projects from 54 countries for this year’s event.