ABOUT
FESTIVAL
The Hiroshima Animation Season (HAS) is the main program of the Media Arts Division of the Hiroshima Festival, which has been held biennially since August 2022. We named it "Hiroshima Animation Season" with the hope of making the Hiroshima summer a time when people can experience diverse animation from around the world, primarily focusing on the Pan-Pacific and Asia regions. It is the only Academy Award®-qualifying film festival in Japan dedicated solely to animation. We aim to provide citizens and visitors from both Japan and abroad with the opportunity to engage with rich animation culture and contribute to the nurturing of the next generation through various projects featuring media arts, including animation. We sincerely invite your participation.
MAIN VISUAL
We are pleased to reveal the official main visual for HAS2026, exclusively created by Georges Schwitzgebel, a member of the HAS2026 Competition Jury.
The main visual, delivered by the Swiss master filmmaker whose work has garnered numerous awards at prestigious international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Chicago, Locarno, Hiroshima, Stuttgart, and Ottawa, depicts the festival scenes we wish to cherish.
Mr. Schwitzgebel also shared a message for the audience!
I am very happy to have been invited to design the poster for the Hiroshima Animation Season 2026 festival, as I truly enjoy creating posters and have also come to Hiroshima quite often to watch animated films. In this poster, I tried to depict a cinema hall transformed into a landscape through the magic of animation, a kind of dissolve or metamorphosis. These are techniques often used in animation. I hope you will like it and that it will make you want to come and watch films from around the world in this magnificent theater in Hiroshima.
Georges Schwizgebel
The animation director and producer Georges Schwizgebel (1944) has created a remarkably original body of work. His films-whose technical execution is always masterful-are marked by a playful approach to narrative, spectacular formalism and the intermingling of visuals and music. His first film, The Flyght of Icarus (1974) begins a career that currently numbers 22 films, which have gone to win numerous awards at prestigious international festivals (such as Cannes, Berlin, Chicago, Locarno, Hiroshima, Stuttgart and Ottawa. The Ride to the Abyss (1992) is regularly cited as one of the finest animated films of all time. In 2017 Georges Schwizgebel receives the Honorary Cristal of Annecy festival, in 2018 the Swiss film award of Honor, and becomes a member of the Oscar’s academy, in 2019 he was appointed officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (France) and receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zagreb Animafest 2020, and get the Grand Prix in HAS 2022 with Darwin’s Notebook.
CHARACTER
Carp Star is the character that graces the Hiroshima Animation Season. It has a curious shape, like a carp, one of the symbols of Hiroshima City, or like a star twinkling in the night sky.
The author is Koji Yamamura, artistic director of the festival.
FESTIVAL TEAM
The Hiroshima Animation Season is run by the following members with the help of many other supporters.