(CFI) Chinese officials pressured French animated film festival Annecy organizers to drop a Chinese film from its program, festival organizers have revealed.
Have a Nice Day by Chinese director Liu Jian was dropped from the world’s biggest animation festival after repeated requests from Chinese officials “in an increasingly firm tone,” according to the organizers.
Patrick Eveno, director of Citia, the festival’s organizer, told French Catholic newspaper La Croix on Tuesday that the festival was put under pressure from Chinese officials.
“Even before we announced its selection, the Chinese authorities were worried about whether we intended to [include it in the] program,” Eveno said.
A statement posted to the Annecy website on May 30 said the decision to drop the black comedy had been imposed on them.
“We must remove one of the feature films selected in [the] competition at Annecy 2017, Liu Jian’s Have a Nice Day, from our program following a decision that has been imposed upon us,” the statement read.
“We’re disappointed about the official pressures that have prevented us from presenting this remarkable film this year and we hope that international audiences will soon have the possibility to see it.”
Have a Nice Day is a 2D, hand-drawn piece made over three years by Liu and a small team of animators, and follows a set of characters chasing a bag of money in a small Chinese town.
Source: China Film Insider by Fergus Ryan