24th Apr 2017
Honorary Cristal for Georges Schwizgebel
This year, the Annecy Festival will be awarding the Honorary Cristal to Georges Schwizgebel, one of Switzerland’s animation greats.
Each year, during the Closing Ceremony, the Annecy International Animation Festival awards its Honorary Cristal to celebrate the work of a leading figure in the animation world. This year, the Festival has decided to give it to Georges Schwizgebel.
After studies in Graphic Design at l’École supérieure des beaux-arts and l’École des arts décoratifs in Geneva, Georges Schwizgebel discovered animation at the Annecy Festival.
In 1970, he founded the GDS Studio (commissions and personal work) with Claude Luyet and Daniel Suter, and started producing and making animated short films.
Since The Flight of Icarus (1974) to Erlking (2015), he has made a score of films with virtually all winning international prizes (Cannes, Zagreb, Hiroshima, Stuttgart, Ottawa, Espinho…). Two of them, 78 Turns (1985) and The Ride to the Abyss (1992), can be found in the list of the 100 best animation films.
He has been to Annecy many times, including twice as a jury member in 1983 and 2000 and the Festival also rewarded one of his films, The Subject of the Picture, with the CANAL+ award in 1989.
Consequently, the Annecy Festival will celebrate the work of this great Swiss animator, who is currently working on new projects, by rewarding him with the Honorary Cristal at the Closing Ceremony on Saturday 17th June.