Kirikou creator and Le Petit Nicolas take top animation awards at Annecy Festival

Every year in June, Annecy becomes the world's animation capital.

From the big American studios to independent creators and students from all over Europe and the world, it is the place to be. And animation is a booming art form.

At Annecy, every kind of format, media, technique and fantasy is allowed - and on show. This year, the stars of animation inaugurated a "Walk of Fame", and Michel Ocelot received an honorary Crystal award, the first of its kind, for his incomparable achievements.

The father of Kirikou is one of the great masters of European animation, and many fans were there to pay tribute.

"I feel I've become a storyteller," Ocelot told Euronews's Frédéric Ponsard. "At first I thought I was essentially a draughtsman, but as time went by, I realized I like telling stories, a little mechanism that starts moving, that goes where I want it to go and stops when it has to, not too early, not too late."

His latest film, The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess, will be released in Europe in autumn.

The festival ended with the handing out of prizes, including the coveted Crystal for best-animated feature, won by the Franco-Luxembourg film Little Nicholas, co-directed by Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre.

It's the story of Le Petit Nicolas and his creators, the cartoonist Sempé and writer Goscinny, who also authored the Asterix cartoon series.

"We're extremely happy for the whole team," said Massoubre. "Because it's really the work of several people, 200 or 250 people! So on a personal level with Amandine we're both really jubilant this evening, but I'm just thinking about the team."

"The Petit Nicolas books were not books for children, they were books for adults who had children," said Fredon. "And this mix of the