LAIKA, the fabled animation studio, celebrated its 20th anniversary over the weekend at the Lumiére Film Festival, with President & CEO Travis Knight in attendance to launch LAIKA: FRAME X FRAME, which will run until December 31, 2025. Institut Lumière and Festival Director Thierry Frémaux welcomed Knight, who also directed “Kubo and the Two Strings” and the upcoming “Wildwood” for LAIKA, to the festival.
“The Lumière brothers transformed technology into poetry. That spirit of curiosity fused with craftsmanship has always guided LAIKA,” said LAIKA President & CEO Travis Knight at the festival. “As LAIKA looks back on 20 years and ahead to new worlds like our next film Wildwood, we are pursuing the same aim: to make something enduring, handmade, and human.”
Knight continued, “LAIKA’s films aren’t generated by algorithms but by human hands,” underlining 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 debuted at the British Film Institute in 2024 and is now on display in Lyon, the city where the moving image was born. The exhibit is described as honoring “the stories of LAIKA and the unparalleled level of detail in the physical puppets, intricately crafted sets, costumes and props behind films including ‘Coraline,’ ‘ParaNorman’ and ‘Kubo and the Strings.’”
At the Halle Tony Garnier, Knight represented the studio onstage at the opening ceremony joining fellow 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, “praised LAIKA as a studio that carries the Lumière legacy forward. Before the film, the audience was treated to a sneak peek of LAIKA’s upcoming feature Wildwood, marking a bridge between LAIKA’s legacy and its next chapter.”
Frémaux presented Knight with a Lumiére photogram, “a 19th-century optical relic symbolizing the continuum between the Lumière brothers’ contribution to cinema and LAIKA’s frame-by-frame artistry. The gesture underscored the kinship between LAIKA’s handcrafted innovation and the’ Lumiére Brothers’ pioneering spirit.”
Earlier in the day at the LAIKA: Frame x Frame exhibition reception, Frémaux, on stage with Knight and Julien Dumont, the museum’s owner.
LAIKA is celebrating 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,” along with the studio’s new computer-generated short film “ParaNorman: The Thrifting” will screen at Lumiére on Wednesday before launching globally later this month. “ParaNorman” director Sam Fell and “The Thrifting” director Thibault Leclercq will make on stage introductions.
Last year’s “Coraline” re-release scored a massive $56 million, making it one of the most successful global re-releases of the past decade and the highest lifetime gross for a stop-motion animated film in the United States.
