Annecy celebrates stop-motion and opens a new animation cultural center

Annecy International Animation Film Festival's 2026 edition placed stop-motion at the center of its public program. Golden Globes' festival report describes Peter Lord's Aardman 50th-anniversary appearance, the Brothers Quay receiving Annecy's Honorary Cristal, and a new Animation Wall of Fame bearing the handprints of prominent stop-motion filmmakers. Lord framed the medium through the direct physical relationship between animator and object, emphasizing the maker's continuous contact with the work rather than treating stop-motion only as a technical category.

The same report connects that celebration to the opening of the Cité Internationale du Cinéma d’Animation. Its inaugural exhibition focuses on LAIKA's Wildwood, with Travis Knight discussing the studio's combination of craft, technology, and physical filmmaking. Festival director Mickaël Marin describes LAIKA's work as ambitious and meticulously handcrafted, while the article situates the new center as a permanent cultural space extending Annecy's stop-motion focus beyond the festival week.