The Annecy International Animation Film Market (MIFA) will host the Namaste MIFA! India‘s Partner Pitch event on June 11, featuring six animation projects from eight Indian creators during the festival’s 40th anniversary celebration.
The curated pitching session is organized by India’s AniMela Festival.
The showcase presents a diverse slate of contemporary Indian animation projects spanning multiple formats and genres. Featured works include “Work in Progress,” a 70-minute animated documentary directed by Subarna Dash and Sneha Das that follows young urban Indian women navigating womanhood in their mid-late 20s through six chapters of “hilarious, relatable, and sometimes awkward stories.”
Among the short films is “My First Kiss,” a 15-minute social and emotional drama by director Shrobontika Dasgupta that addresses child sexual abuse through the story of Little Rani and her imaginary friend Mr. Chicken. The film aims to “evoke conversations around good touch and bad touch in every household through a personal story.”
“Patangein,” directed by Arya Pandey, presents a 15-minute drama set in Old Lucknow, focusing on a young barber dealing with grief while haunted by visions of kites that remind him of his deceased brother. The story culminates in a symbolic moment where kites soar, “echoing a journey home.”
The adventure short “Daak,” directed by Rahul Chakraborty, follows 15-year-old Dukhe in the Sundarbans as he encounters Dakshin Ray, a shapeshifting tiger deity, in a 20-minute folktale about environmental protection and spiritual transformation.
Two series projects round out the lineup: “Penumbra,” a psychological thriller by Taher Kapadiya featuring 20-minute episodes about spirit hunters capturing supernatural entities in a realm where “superstitions manifest as tangible horrors,” and “M.O.M – Ma On a Mission,” created by Rituparna Sarkar and Sruti Menon, a 25-minute family comedy following an Indian mother with secret superpowers whose son gets kidnapped into an alternate digital dimension.
The event is co-partnered by Institut Français, Ambassade de France en Inde, Assemblage Entertainment, and Zebu, representing AniMela’s ongoing initiative to showcase Indian animation talent on the international stage.
Projects span multiple languages including English, Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, and Malayalam, targeting audiences from teenagers to families, demonstrating the breadth of contemporary Indian animation storytelling.
Presenting at Annecy’s work-in-progress feature films category is “Heirloom,” directed by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya. Set in 1960s Ahmedabad, the India-Germany co-production follows young businessman Kirti, who crusades to preserve handlooms, and his wife Sonal, who is dying of a hereditary disease and argues they should enter the powerloom industry to secure their family’s future. The story explores their choice “between moving forward or giving in to nostalgia when they encounter a tapestry that illustrates their entire family history.”
The “Heirloom” team includes producer Arya Menon from Odd&Even Pictures, animation director Gaurav Wakankar, co-producer Fabian Driehorst from PomPom Animation, and executive producer Arpan Gaglani from Philm CGI, representing Otter Studios.
