'The Prophet' to Open 2015 Annecy Festival This June

The Annecy Animation Festival- held in Annecy, France- is a long established part of the world animation calendar. Showing at the event is quite a coup for animators from around the world. It's now been announced that this year's festival will open with the keenly anticipated Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.

Since it was first shown as a work in progress at last year's Cannes Film Festival, the project has gained a lot of attention. Animated segments have been produced by some of animation's foremost talents including Bill Plympton, Tomm Moore and Nina Paley. Although each section is inspired by one of Gibran's poems, the directors were given free reign to create a story inspired by the original work. The overall director (who produced the wrap-around story to connect the segments) is the veteran Roger Allers (The Lion King).

This year's Annecy will take place between the 15th and 20th of June,  with The Prophet playing at the festival's opening ceremony. In attendance will be Salma Hayek, who not only produced (and acted in) the film, but seemingly actually came up with the idea of turning it into an animated film in the first place.

According to Hayek "Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet has been read by more than 120 million people all over the world, so it was a real challenge for me to adapt it to… animation. I decided to get help from nine of the best animation directors around".

More details about this year's festival will be released soon. Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet will be released in the US and Canada this August via GKIDS.