Baahubali: The Eternal War, a CGI animated spin-off set in the Baahubali universe, will be among nine upcoming animated features showcased in the Annecy International Film Festival’s Work in Progress (WIP) lineup in June.
Lead produced by Arka Mediaworks, the animated feature follows murdered Prince Baahubali as he enters the afterlife and joins an eternal war across 14 realms between Devas and Asuras, personifications of Order and Chaos, with his destiny reshaping the cosmos forever.
Ishan Shukla is directing from a screenplay by Scott Mosier. The animated spin-off follows in the wake of the successful re-release last October of Baahubali: The Epic, combining S.S. Rajamouli’s original 2015 and 2017 blockbusters Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali: The Conclusion.
Annecy’s WIP lineup also features Snoopy Unleashed, the second Peanuts-inspired feature which is in production with Vancouver-based WildBrain for Apple TV.
Steve Martino directs from a screenplay by Bryan Schulz, Cornelius Uliano, Karey Kirkpatrick, with the voice cast featuring Riley Vargas, Lara Mehmet, Zahara Kerner.
Netflix’s Cinderella spin-off Steps directed by Alice Tzue and John Ripa, and featuring Ali Wong and Stephanie Hsu in the voice cast, will also be teased.
Loosely adapted from the Charles Perrault classic, the comedic retelling sees misunderstood evil sister Lilith forced to team up with Cinderella after she accidentally turns her sister Margot into frog.
European projects include the ambitious French-Luxembourgish-Swiss co-production Séraphine, about a young girl growing up in Montmartre in the 1880s, who sets off on a mission to discover the true identity of her parents.
Béatrice Dalle, Florence Loiret-Caille, Marie Zidi, Camélia Jordana and Corinne Masiera feature in the voice cast.
It is produced by Little Big Story in coproduction with JPL Films, TNZPV Productions, Doghouse Films, Nadasdy Film and France 3 Cinéma.
France’s Benjamin Massoubre, who previously worked as an editor on Arcane, The Summit of the Gods, Little Vampire and I Lost My Body and directed Little Nicholas – Happy as Can Be, will present his second feature The Wolf in which a shepherd seeks revenge after his flock is massacred overnight.
There is also Georgian-Greece work Igi, adapted from Jemal Kharchkhadze eponymous work about a game-changing prehistoric chief who oversees his people’s survival, and forces them to straighten up to abandon the practice of walking on all fours. It is directed by Natia Nikolashvili and produced by 20 Step Animation with Heretic co-producing
Further European titles include Cécile Mclorin Salvant’s tragic musical Ogresse, about a lone ogress who is cruelly pursued by a young man intent on killing her.
Japan will be out in force.
Toei Animation will present Monkey Quest, about siblings in a near-future world on a mission to find their missing parents. David N. Weiss, who took writing credits on Rugrats in Paris, Shrek 2 and The Smurfs among many other feature animations, directs with the support of co-directors Stephanie Ma Stein and Takao Noguchi.
The lineup also features Kazuaki Kuribayashi’s anime work Killtube, set in a futuristic skyscraper city governed by Edo Period rules in which society is split into seven casts. Musashi, Kikuchiyo and Leo seek to rise from the bottom and seize their freedom.
Sixteen projects will be showcased across Annecy’s WIP program with three series also in the line: Astro Boy Reboot, Disney’s Cars: Lightening Racers and season two of Common Side Effects.
The latter continues the story of Marshall and Frances, who share a secret: a mushroom that can cure almost anything. Now fugitives and on the run, the two former lab partners face the enormous consequences of their discovery.
The WIP sessions are among the most popular events at the French festival, often booking out within minutes of the tickets going online.
Over the years it has given a sneak peek at number of films that have gone to achieve box office, festival and awards success such as Allah Is Not Obliged (2024), Death Does Not Exist (2024), Flow (2023), Chicken for Linda! (2022), No Dogs or Italians Allowed (2020) and Flee (2019).
The Annecy International Film Festival runs from June 23 to 26 this year.
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