LAIKA, the legendary animation studio, celebrated its 20th anniversaryth anniversary this weekend at the Lumière Festival, with President and CEO Travis Knight in attendance for the launch of LAIKA: FRAME
“The Lumière brothers transformed technology into poetry. This spirit of curiosity merged with craftsmanship has always guided LAIKA,” said Travis Knight, President and CEO of LAIKA, at the festival. “As LAIKA looks back 20 years and looks toward new worlds like our upcoming film Wildwood, we pursue the same goal: to create something sustainable, handmade and human. »
Knight continued, “LAIKA’s films are not generated by algorithms but by human hands,” emphasizing his belief that the studio’s handcrafted animation is a counterpoint to the rise of AI-driven production tools.
LAIKA: FRAME X FRAME at the Musée Cinéma et Miniature, is a traveling exhibition produced by LAIKA and co-presented by the British Film Institute (BFI). The exhibition opened at the British Film Institute in 2024 and is now on display in Lyon, the city where the moving image was born. The exhibition is described as honoring “LAIKA’s stories and the unparalleled level of detail in the physical puppets, sets, costumes and finely crafted props behind films such as ‘Coraline,’ ‘ParaNorman,’ and ‘Kubo and the Strings.’
At the Halle Tony Garnier, Knight represented the studio on stage during the opening ceremony alongside other guests including Sean Penn, Scott Cooper, Jeremy Allen White, Shu Qi, Costa-Gavras, Valeria Golino, Dominique Blanc and Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent.
LAIKA’s visit to the festival also included a sold-out screening of “Kubo and the Two Strings.” In his introduction to the film, Frémaux welcomed Knight and, according to the official statement, “commended LAIKA as the studio that continues the Lumière legacy. Before the film, audiences were treated to a sneak peek at LAIKA’s upcoming feature film, Wildwood, marking a bridge between LAIKA’s legacy and its next chapter.”
Frémaux presented Knight with a Lumière photogram, “a 19th-century optical relic symbolizing the continuum between the Lumière brothers’ contribution to cinema and the stop-motion art of LAIKA. The gesture underlined the kinship between LAIKA’s artisanal innovation and the pioneering spirit of the Lumière Brothers.”
Earlier in the day, at the reception for the LAIKA: Frame x Frame exhibition, Frémaux, on stage with Knight and museum owner Julien Dumont, “praised the pioneering vision of the Portland-based studio, celebrating its role in continuing the artistry and invention that began in Lyon more than a century ago,” according to the official release.
LAIKA celebrates its 20th anniversary this year as one of the most beloved animation studios, known for “marrying old-world craftsmanship with modern technology, including color 3D printing, stereoscopic photography and hybrid workflows, all in service of emotionally resonant storytelling” and beloved films like “ParaNorman,” “Coraline” and “The Boxtrolls.”
The remastered version of “ParaNorman,” as well as the studio’s new computer-generated short film “ParaNorman: The Thrifting,” will screen at Lumière on Wednesday before launching worldwide later this month. “ParaNorman” director Sam Fell and “The Thrifting” director Thibault Leclercq will make onstage presentations.
Last year’s re-release of “Coraline” grossed a whopping $56 million, making it one of the most successful global re-releases of the last decade and the highest grossing for a stop-motion animated film in the United States.
