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Annecy 2012 - More Impressions

By Dan Sarto | Friday, June 8, 2012 at 9:46pm
In Business, Event, People, Places | Blogs: Animated Travels

My cat Dexter, doing his impression of the look the waiter at the Imperial Palace gave Max Howard after he'd inquired as to the whereabouts of the capuccino he'd ordered 15 minutes previously.

By Dan Sarto

As the week winds down and I find myself craving a simple green salad, I figured I'd share more images from my time at the festival.  Formal write-ups will have to wait until early next week I'm afraid, when I've recovered from the jet lag, the lack of sleep and the searing memory of a student film in competition depicting a man being sodomized by an umbrella.

Where is everybody? Ah, they must be passed out at a student film screening inside the Petite Salle.

Warren Franklin, former CEO of Vancouver's Rainmaker Studios, with Serge Bromberg at the Chinese cocktail party in the MIFA chill-out lounge. Warren has a new venture cooking he promised he'd share with me as soon as it's ready to announce, hopefully at SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles.

The scene at the Disney BBQ alonside the lake at La Plage. The foie gras kept melting through the grill, but the burgers and kabobs were quite tasty.

Animators Candy Kugel, Paul Bush and two young ladies whose names I've forgotten. My apologies. Though Paul has a fantastic body of work and is one of the funniest people you'll ever meet, he's most notorious for his split screen stop-motion penis film shown at the opening ceremonies here some years ago.

Ron with Sony's Jana Day.

Mickael Marin, head of the MIFA. During Mickael's tenure, the MIFA has doubled in size and stature and really helped solidify industryr awareness of the growing importance of the festival as a destination for business networking.

Some of the fine folks from the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark, including Michelle Nardone (far left) and Tim Leborgne (second from right).

(From left to right) Indie legend Bill Plympton, animator, teacher and big wave surfing champion Pat Smith and Alexander Gellner, whose film One Minute Puberty was in competition.

Aardman co-founder Peter Lord.

My spectacular Wednesday lunch. If the steak looks barely cooked, that's because it was - still cool in the center. Notice the flecks of fleur de sel (fine hand harvested finishing salt for all you culinarily challenged readers) dotting the top of the steak. Even the salad dressing was good - not the usual jar of Dijon folks here seem to prefer poured over all their salad greens.

The Path to Beyond and The Dearest. We had to translate questions back and forth in three languages - English, French and Korean. 90 minutes of fun was had by all.

Thursday Ron and I attended a swanky luncheon at Les Tresomes hosted by director general Olivier-Rene Veillon and director of marketing Yann Marchet of the French Film Commission. Olivier, on the left, welcomes guests alongside Citia president Dominique Puthod.

After drinks and appetizers on the patio, we were treated to a first course of roasted vegetable and goat cheese terrine wrapped in slightly smoked salmon, served with some small zucchini tempura atop a tomato puree. The plate was a thin piece of slate. Very, very classy and extremely tasty. The name tag proves I din't crash the festivities but was actually invited.

The main course was roasted duck breast, medium rare, alongside a medley of pureed pear and strawberries, with some type of jus and basil oil. Man oh man, quite a dish.

(From left to right) Animation Magazine owner Jean Thoren, animation director Matt O'Callaghan and me in my purple checkered geek shirt.

(From left to right) Gilles Gaillard from Mikros Image Animation, Eric Riewer of Gobelins, Bill Plympton, his wife Sandrine Flament and Illumination's Kevin Bisch.

Fellow lunch guests (from left to right) Dominique Puthod, Dimitri Granovsky from Ecole Georges Melies, Eric Riewer, BUF founder Pierre Buffin and Kevin Bisch.

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