‘The Violinist’, ‘Iron Boy’ lead Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2026 winners; festival pays tribute to Luis de la Rosa

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'The Violinist', 'Iron Boy'

Source: France TV Distribution / Playtime

‘The Violinist’, ‘Iron Boy’

Raul Garcia and Ervin Han’s The Violinist won the Cristal for best film at Annecy International Animation Film Festival, with several prizes also for Louis Clichy’s Iron Boy.

The Violinist sees a reporter uncover the mystery behind an ageing violin legend and her treasured instrument, finding a forgotten story of love, war and music that spans 80 years.

Scroll down for the full list of feature film winners

The film is produced by Garcia and Takafumi Yuki for Japan’s Throne Inc, with Han for Singapore’s Robot Playground Media, Paloma Mora for Spain’s TV On Producciones, and Cristiano Bortone for Italy’s Altri Occhi. France TV Distribution handles international sales.

Iron Boy took three prizes: the Jury Prize, the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, and the feature film Audience Award.

Clichy’s film launched in Un Certain Regard at Cannes last month, with Playtime handling international sales. It follows a 10-year-old boy who needs to wear a corset to stop him collapsing, and who discovers music.

Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Guigue’s Blaise won the top Grand Prix in the Contrechamp competition. Mixing cut outs, 2D animation and photos, the film follows Blaise, an introverted 16-year-old who always agrees to everything, until he meets Josephine and decides to blow everything up.

Don Hertzfeldt took the best short film Cristal for experimental title Paper Trail, depicting a life seen through paper.

As part of its Grand Sommeil segment paying tribute to people in the animation industry who have died in the last year, the festival acknowledged the death of Mexican animator Luis de la Rosa at the festival on Wednesday.

According to local newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré, a young Mexican animator – later confirmed to be De la Rosa - was hit by a train near Rue Aristide-Briand, less than 1.5km from the festival’s main venues.

De la Rosa, who had worked in the animation department on features including Space Jam: A New Legacy and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, was in Annecy to pitch original series project Ash Raider World at the Mifa market.

Twelve special prizes, most of them with sponsorship partners, were presented on Friday 26, separately from the main awards ceremony the following day. Special prizes included another Audience Award, given to Gabriel Osorio’s Brave Cat.