France Is the Country of Honor

France Is the Country of Honor

| Festival | 2026 |

Today we announce that France will be the Country of Honor at the 15th edition of the Pixelatl Festival, as part of the Great Franco-Mexican Celebration commemorating the Bicentennial of Diplomatic Relations between the two countries (as we explained here).

We made the announcement at a press conference held at Casa de Francia in Mexico, with the participation of Valeria Palomino, General Director of Cultural Promotion and Festivals at the Federal Ministry of Culture; Jean-François Guéganno, Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of France in Mexico and Director of IFAL; Alfredo Aceves, General Director of the Agency for the Development of Creative and Digital Industries and President of the Ciudad Creativa Digital Trust (the festival's venue); Thalía Machuca and Roi Contreras of Mister Machin; and José Iñesta, co-founder and director of Pixelatl.

A Few Festival Highlights

During the press conference, we announced some of the prominent members of this year's French delegation, including acclaimed director and screenwriter Jérémy Clapin (Oscar nominee, winner of the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes, and Annecy Audience Award winner); Véronique Encrenaz, Director of MIFA at Annecy; Jean-François Le Corre, creator of the animation studio Vivement Lundi!, which has produced films such as Yuku and the Himalayan Flower (Rémi Durin and Arnaud Demuynck, 2022).

Also joining us will be Nidia Santiago, producer at Ikki Films, with whom she developed Amélie and the Secret of the Rain (2025, Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang and Maïlys Vallade), an Oscar-nominated film, as well as Virus Tropical (2017, by Santiago Caicedo).

On the distribution and co-production side, we will be joined by Luce Grosjean, president and co-founder of Miyu Distribution, as well as two studios from the Angoulême region, Les Films du Poisson Rouge and Caribara Animation, looking to explore co-production opportunities.

In addition, this year we will have the presence and live coverage of Catsuka, the most important news site and distribution platform for animation in France.

Of Cooperation and Resistance

"All of us at the Embassy of France and IFAL proudly celebrate this 15th anniversary and reaffirm our commitment to continuing to strengthen audiovisual cooperation between France and Mexico (…) to bring the richness and diversity of French animation to new audiences and new generations," said Jean-François Guéganno during the press conference.

As we explained in the press release, France has a robust comics and animation industry that serves as a cultural pillar and a guardian of the language. This ecosystem, also driven by its schools, whose educational model places them among the best in the world, creates alternatives to a purely commercial model, allowing artists to develop their talent professionally.

For her part, Valeria Palomino, representing the Federal Ministry of Culture, explained that "All animation begins with a gesture that is both simple and extraordinary: drawing something that does not exist and giving it movement. That act of imagining worlds and bringing them to life is a way of telling who we are, (…) it defines how a culture sees itself and presents itself to others."

"To commemorate is to remember together, and that is why it is so important for us to recognize and honor the mutual support we have built over these years with friends, artists, producers, and cultural organizers from France to promote the industries of both countries," said José Iñesta, director of Pixelatl, adding that "we need the celebration to resist the blows of a hostile environment, to remind one another, through lived experience, that we are not alone."

Finally, Roi Contreras, founder of Guadalajara-based studio Mister Machin, the creative partner of the Pixelatl 2026 festival, explained that "…for us it is very important to put the artist back at the center of the industry, to recognize them as the core of the creative industries. The history of the cineminute is one of resistance: resisting as artists, as an industry, as animation or video game studios, in the face of all this technological onslaught and lack of control that we have before us, but always with our hearts in our hands and always with empathy, because it is in adversity that we recognize ourselves as human beings."

So now you know… we are preparing our best festival, both to honor French talent and the collaboration we have built over the years, and to place artists at the center, now more than ever. To resist.

Join us in the fight for a better future together!

You are invited to our revolution.