Sep 26, 2024

Animation Is Film Hosts North American Premieres of “The Colors Within” and “The Day The Earth Blew Up”

The Animation Is Film (AIF) festival, founded by distributor GKIDS in collaboration with the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Variety, will celebrate its seventh edition October 18-20 at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

The festival kicks off on Friday, October 18 with the North American premiere of “The Colors Within,” the latest film by Naoko Yamada, director of “A Silent Voice.” The film is animated by Japanese studio Science Sal and distributed in the U.S. by GKIDS. Director Yamada is scheduled to attend the festival.

On Saturday, AIF will present the North American premiere of Warner Bros. Animation's The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, distributed in Japan by Ketchup Entertainment. Director Pete Braungart will present the film in person. The closing night film of the festival will be the Los Angeles premiere of Adam Elliott's “Memoir of a Snail,” which won Best Feature Film at Annecy this year. The film is distributed by IFC Films in the U.S., and director Elliott will be in attendance.

“The Colors Within” and “Memoir of a Snail” will be in the Official Competition along with four other films. Surprisingly, the festival has only presented six feature films in Competition, fewer than in any previous year in the festival's history. With such a wealth of independent and international feature films to choose from, it is unclear why so few films were selected for this year's Competition section.

Conversely, the festival has expanded its special screenings and studio events to include numerous talks, panels, and screenings of mainstream commercial animation, including panels dedicated to Inside Out 2, Moana 2, Transformers One, and The Wild Robot, An Almost Christmas Story,” a new Disney short directed by David Lowery and executive produced by Alfonso Cuarón, will also be screened.

Among the major studios, Netflix has presented major titles four times in the past, but was notably absent this year. The company is listed as a sponsor for this year's festival.

The festival also hosts multiple programs of award-winning short films and has broadened its definition of cinema to include series-specific panels like Unbeatable Fight Girl and Yooperman.

Tickets and other information are available at AnimationIsFilm.com, and festival trailers and the full program lineup can be found at:

Feature Competition Lineup

Special Screenings and Studio Events

Short Films [21].