This year, Annecy started with the Women in Animation World Summit on Monday 11 June. A day of sessions and discussions around Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, introduced by the skilled motivator Julie Ann Crommett, VP of Multicultural Audience Engagement at the Walt Disney Studios. This high-level motivation continued over the VIP lunch, where I was sat next to Vanessa Morrison, President of Fox Family. Vanessa has a kind of underlying superpower that makes you feel invincible after as little as a five-minute conversation with her and so I found myself ready and willing to follow her into battle. She had the difficult challenge of presenting the final panel of the day, which was on developing diverse talent, but I came away having made a pledge to always look beyond the most obvious places when searching for talent on our shows.
The World Summit was co-produced by Les Femmes S’Animent, who asked me to present the following morning at one of the Breakfast Series. Here we talked about setting up your own organisation, with representatives from Spain and Germany, among others, wanting to know more. As far as AWUK is concerned, this was perhaps the most significant meeting of the week, as I was approached a number of times over the next few days, by women looking for advice on gathering their own communities to form a group to support and network.
This year seemed particularly busy, and although I start every Annecy week telling myself, not to take meetings that clash with screenings or sessions I have booked, next year I must make a conscious effort to stick by that motto. But I also took some good learnings from the week: good and diverse talent is out there, it just needs a bit more time to find, and may not always be where we’re used to looking; what we show on the screen should reflect the actual world we live in and not the one we think we see – don’t forget our audiences are global; there are plenty of folks who want to support diversity, they just don’t always know the best way how and are happy to take the advice – everyone should be made aware of their biases; remember how it feels not believing you belong at the table, imagine how that is for other, more marginalised sections of society.
So, when not wearing my Disney hat, I was firmly wearing my AWUK one, which meant I spent the whole week in meetings. Now I’m frantically catching up on a few short films since returning, thanks to the video library!
Beth Parker is our Animation Chair. Find out more about Beth and the rest of our team here.
Beth Parker at Annecy 2018
