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Variety: India's AVAF, France's Annecy Festival Launch AniMela Festival in November 2023

Entertainment news magazine Variety reported on Thursday that India's Aniverse and Visual Arts Foundation (AVAF) and France's Annecy Festival are partnering to launch the AniMela Festival in Mumbai in November 2023. The organizations describe the festival as "India's first-ever international festival for animation, VFX, XR, gaming and comics."

The festival will include events, activities, and workshops geared toward fostering artistic, technological, and entrepreneurial innovation in the field of AVGC-XR (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, Extended Reality). The event will also host masterclasses and workshops for aspiring artists and game developers.

CEO of India's Central Board of Film Certification and Children Films Society of India Ravinder Bhakar announced at the Focus on India panel discussion at the Venice Film Festival on September 3 that the Indian government is in talks with France's Annecy Animation Festival to bring a local version of the festival to the country.

Established in 1960, Annecy is the world's oldest and largest animation film festival. Last year's event took place from June 13-18 in the French town of the same name.

Kireet Khurana, Archana Trasy, Anne Doshi, Neha Jain, and Tehzeeb Khurana founded the not-for-profit organization AVAF with the goal of promoting animation and other visual arts in India.

Source: Variety (Naman Ramachandran)