In this episode, gold extra´s Reinhold Bidner talks with Boris Labbé, a multiple award-winning French animator, director, and media artist. This conversation was recorded in mid-June 2025 during the Festival d'Animation d'Annecy, the largest animation festival worldwide.
Originally from the fields of fine arts and traditional animation, Boris Labbé has been expanding his work for years: besides animated films he also creates audio-visual performances, and shows his works in intallations and exhibitions. In the last years Boris also experimented and created with VR and AI, but he always maintains a clear understanding of the narrative he wants to deliver, a clear focus on his artistic style, and an ongoing research process combining traditional handcraft techniques with new technologies.
He has received numerous awards, including the Golden Nica at the 2016 Ars Electronica Festival (with Rhizome), the Grand Prix at Venice Immersive in 2024 (with Ito Meikyu), and the Off-Limits Award at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (with Glass House). These are just three of the many awards he has received since 2011.
Boris Labbé’s work forms a cinema of multiplicity. Repetition, re-presentation, collages, patterns, metamorphoses, and perpetual movement, as well as constant citations of art history, literature, and philosophy have all become essential resources of his audiovisual language.