Four National Film Board of Canada (NFB) shorts have been selected for the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June.

Selected as part of the official short film competition is writer-director Michèle Lemieux’s Le tableau (NFB). Lemieux is also the film’s animator, while producers include Christine Noël and Julie Roy. The film looks at the fate of Queen Mariana of Austria and her 1652 portrait by painter Velázquez.

Also in official competition are writer-director Ryo Orikasa’s Misérable miracle and writer-director Torill Kove’s Peut-être des éléphants.

Misérable miracle is a copro between the NFB, France’s Miyu Productions and Japan-based New Deer. Producers include NFB’s Jelena Popovic, Robert McLaughlin and Michael Fukushima; Miyu’s Emmanuel-Alain Raynal and Pierre Baussaron; and New Deer’s Nobuaki Doi. The film is inspired by Belgian-French writer Henri Michaux’s book of poetry and drawings of the same name.

Peut-être des éléphants is coproduced by the NFB and Norway’s Mikrofilm. The short follows the story of three rebellious teenage daughters, a restless mother, a father in Nairobi. Producers are NFB’s Maral Mohammadian, and Mikrofilm’s Tonje Skar Reiersen and Lise Fearnley. Executive producers include McLaughlin and Fukushima.

Also in official competition are Daniel Gies’ Retour à Hairy Hill, Birute Sodeikaite’s In perpetuum and Ivan Li’s Drizzle in Johnson.

Directed by Gies, Retour à Hairy Hill (E.D. Films) centres on a girl who has to care for her younger siblings when their mother abruptly leaves. Gies also wrote the short with producer Emily Paige. Distribution is handled by E.D. Films and Mina Lee.

In perpetuum, directed and produced by Birute Sodeikaite, looks at the story of a woman “metamorphosing into another and trying to tame her new self,” according to the film’s logline.

Director and producer Ivan Li’s Drizzle in Johnson, rounds out the Canadian titles in the official competition. The film’s logline reads: “A man searches for an answer.”

Director Jo Roy’s Corpus et l’exploration divine completes the selected NFB titles and will screen in the Off-Limits Competition.

Corpus et l’exploration divine is produced by Jeremy Mendes and executive produced by McLaughlin. The experimental film features a dancer who “rediscovers her soul and reclaims her mind.” The film uses video compositing, body close-ups filmed with iPhone, and stop-motion, according to the release.

The 2024 edition of Annecy takes place from June 9 to 15.

Images: (L-R; top) Peut-être des éléphants and Le tableau, courtesy of the NFB; (L-R, bottom) Misérable miracle, courtesy of the NFB, Miyu Productions and New Deer; Corpus et l’exploration divine, courtesy of the NFB