The Annecy International Film Festival in France launched last month with the screening of five shorts during the opening ceremony, with one one of the newest Star Wars: Visions shorts " Black " also shown before its official release in October 2025. During the event, Crunchyroll News was able to sit down with the " Black " director Shinya Ohira and anime studio david production producer Jacob Ayres to speak about this new short and the style it brings to an already gigantic franchise. How are you enjoying your week in Annecy? Shinya Ohira : As far as the festival goes, we've only actually been able to catch one screening so far, so we haven't made the most of it yet, but we're going to see quite a few things tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day, so hopefully that'll be enjoyable. France [is] nice, Annecy in particular is a very beautiful town with a lot of very nice nature. I was speaking to a friend earlier and said that the lake out there, the water is quite warm, and it's perfect for swimming as well. I haven’t gone swimming, but it’s nice to know. How did the story of “Black” come to life? Ohira : Star Wars is the world of the force, Jedi, Sith, lightsabers and things like that. But I wanted to really look at a character who didn't have any of those abilities. None of the real things that made Star Wars … But just look at a stormtrooper and a trooper who has no particular strong character traits, like some people. It's that sort of facelessness that drew me to the character. RELATED: Stars Wars: Visions Returns for Volume 3 with TRIGGER, WIT Studio and More What were the challenges of adapting something that has so many adaptations? Ohira : Obviously, there are many stories within the Star Wars world, but we didn't think so much about the story as the imagery that we wanted to portray. One of the first things I thought about when starting on this project was that I wanted a lot of fully animated backgrounds. And to portray something simply, I decided to go for a location, which is already very well known to the fans with the Death Star. And then focus on the story of one soldier in the midst of battles and the nightmares that he's facing. With that focus, were there any indications and/or limitations from Disney and Lucasfilm? Ohira : There was a few things that we got from Disney and Star Wars . It might not be obvious, but they didn’t want us to portray any of the main characters from the original series and things like the Millennium Falcon. They said, “Please stay away from them," which is fair enough. It’s set in a “galaxy far, far away,” so they were very specific about not having any Earth-based creatures. They can be similar, but make sure they’re alien. Also, there are limits on the portrayal of gore as well, because it's on the Disney+ platform, obviously. And that was the one condition that didn't upset me, but it was the one condition that I had to really think about because in my animation, I’m used to drawing quite graphic material, and I was thinking about potentially making this relatively graphic. But I wasn't able to, so I had to think slightly more about how I directed the shots and that actually ended up as something quite interesting to do. How do we maneuver the cameras so we're not showing anything too graphic, but still depicting the same story? That was actually quite rewarding. After watching the first episode, I think we can see how it is implied that this moment is pretty violent. Ohira : One of the things that I hope viewers will take away from this is that I tried to use imagery that is fairly common to Earth. Things like butterflies and moths and flowers, in hopes of having some of the similar meanings that it would do in an Earth-based film. For example, the flowers or the butterflies are the imagery of a symbol of happiness, joy, or something like that. Whereas a moth would be something to counter. So we tried to use things which exist, and changed them into it more intergalactic setting, but hopefully it will still get the same meaning across. Both Star Wars and david production resonate with the world. Was is it a natural fit? Jacob Ayres : Ohira-san was fine working down his end, but as a company, we know Lucasfilm and Qubic, who are standing between us and Lucasfilm, they're the production company. We're working with a very helpful, very open team, and they were really on board with what Ohira was trying to do, and so especially Justin Leach, the CEO of Qubic. He was trying to reassure Lucasfilm that whatever's going on will be good. Let's trust the process, let's trust Ohira-san and that really helped smooth things over. As far as david production, we obviously wanted to make something good. We wanted to make his ideal episode, and so a lot of the animators that we ended up working with aren't in-house, actually, none of them are. They were people that Ohira-san wanted us to approach, and that's why we worked with a lot of new and upcoming talent that he found online as well. But we didn’t really have any problems. RELATED: Kenji Kamiyama’s Star Wars: Visions Short the Ninth Jedi Expands to Limited Series Recruiting talent online fits Annecy’s goals, meeting and connecting with new talent from all over the world. And coming to this event is probably huge, both representing Star Wars and david production. Is there a value for the studio, maybe to find new talents or display how capable the studio is? Ayres : Good question [laughs]. As far as david production goes, I'm honestly fairly low down on the rungs, so there's a limit to what I can really do to improve our image or send out a message, but it is fantastic to speak to a lot of the animators and the young animators here as well, because Ohira-san is so popular with student animators and plenty of students from Gobelins. People come up to him, and they show him their animation. And I'm there as well, handing out business cards because we've worked with a few students from Gobelins before, and they're all very, very talented. If they ever want to come work in Japan, we're more than happy to accommodate and offer any assistance that we can. I think, personally, because I'm only more on the international side of things, that's something that I'm hoping to get out of this is to bring more foreign talented young animators on board. But as a company and a subsidiary of Fuji TV, this is a very unique project. Hopefully people take away that we're open to doing numerous different things as well. Ohira : I had a good experience working with a very international team, and I hope that I'll be able to work on more international projects with more International animators in the future. The Star Wars: Visions animated anthology series first premiered in 2021 and returned with an international roster of creators in 2023. Volume 3 will will officially debut on October 29, 2025 with the return of the Japanese anime studios working on the project, consisting of nine shorts produced by both new and returning production houses: David Production ( Fire Force ) Kamikaze Doga + ANIMA ( SAND LAND ) Kinema Citrus ( The Rising of the Shield Hero ) Polygon Pictures ( Kaina of the Great Snow Sea ) Production I.G ( Kaiju No.8 ) Project Studio Q TRIGGER ( Cyberpunk: Edgerunners ) WIT Studio ( Vivy -Fluorite Eye's Song- ) The first volume of Star Wars: Visions premiered on September 22, 2021, featuring shorts from Japanese anime studios Kamikaze Doga, Studio Colorido, TRIGGER, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G, Science SARU and Geno Studio. The second volume premiered on May 4, 2023 and consisted of shorts produced by Cartoon Saloon (Ireland), PunkRobot Studio (Chile), Studio Mir (South Korea), Aardman Animations (UK), Triggerfish Animation Studios (South Africa), D'ART Shtajio (Japan), Studio La Cachette (France), 88 Pictures (India) and El Guiri Studios (Spain). All are currently streaming on Disney+.
