French Embassy Road to Annecy 2025 for East African animation studios – Opportunities For Africans

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Application Deadline: nineteenth May 2025

Applications are actually open for the 2025 French Embassy Road to Annecy. Road to Annecy 2025 – East Africa version is a flagship initiative supported by the French Embassy in Kenya and delivered in partnership with the Association of Animation Artists Kenya (A3K), Alliance Française Nairobi (AFN), and The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (MIFA Annecy).

The animation business in East Africa is younger and vibrant, but the sector faces challenges reminiscent of restricted distribution channels, fragmented networks, and a scarcity of market-readiness abilities.

The programme goals to handle these challenges by empowering studios with sensible enterprise abilities and information (pitching, distribution, and so forth), connecting them to international business networks, and selling collaboration throughout the area.

Programme Objectives

• Facilitate entry to worldwide markets & patrons by way of a participation to MIFA in June 2025
• Equip studios with pitching, advertising and marketing, and monetization abilities & information
• Equip chosen animation studios with abilities to construct sustainable enterprise methods
• Promote regional collaborations throughout East Africa.

Eligibility

• Studios should be primarily based or originate in one of many following East African international locations: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan, Erythreea
• Applicants should be an lively and formalized animation studio
• Applicants should commit to take part to all phases of this system (Annecy, Lab, Mentorship, Showcase).
• At least one workforce member should maintain a sound passport and give you the chance to journey to France between June ninth and June 14th, 2025. This particular person should even be of their nation of residence from May twenty first onward to facilitate the visa application course of.
• Applicants should both have an authentic mental property (IP) presently in growth or have beforehand accomplished an authentic IP.

Benefits

• Annecy Film Festival East-African Delegation (in particular person, Annecy, 8-14 June 2025): attend MIFA, world’s greatest market for animation professionals, along with fellow East-African animation studios founders and administrators
• Distribution Lab (in particular person, Nairobi, September 2025): grasp pitching, advertising and marketing & enterprise technique
• 6-month mentorship & masterclasses with business consultants from Africa & France
• Showcases (Oct 2025): spotlights throughout World Animation Day in Nairobi & past

Obligations of chosen contributors

• Full participation in all program phases.
• Submission of a remaining narrative report after undertaking completion, by the tip of December 2025.
• Engagement in mentorship classes and showcase occasions.
• Active participation in visibility actions (e.g. interviews, social media takeovers, and so forth.).

Application Timeline:

seventh May 2025	Applications open
nineteenth May 2025	Deadline for functions
twenty first May 2025	Selected studios introduced
twenty third May 2025	Virtual onboarding session
twenty first May – seventh June 2025	Visa application to France
ninth – 14th June 2025	MIFA – Annecy Film Festival Participation
Summer 2025	Virtual masterclasses
September 2025	In particular person Animation Lab in Nairobi
Autumn 2025	Mentorshop + Showcase in Nairobi, Lagos, and different cities

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the French Embassy Road to Annecy