Animafest Zagreb sticks to strong competition programming along with special programs with a nod to the annual theme.
The World Is on the Edge
As the second-oldest animation festival in the world, after Annecy, Animafest Zagreb does not try to be all things to all animators.It sticks to strong competition programming, along with special programs with a nod to the annual theme, which this year was “The World Is On The Edge.
The 2024 theme was humor in an attempt to offer at least a little optimism in the increasingly bleak reality.This year, as we face the fact that the doomsday clock continues to tick another notch to the right, the festival created four programs that addressed issues facing global society today.The films in the four programs, and , were not there for the viewer to sit back, relax, and enjoy.
They were intended to make you feel uncomfortable and think.The screening portrayed the dreams of migrants and refugees, their perilous journeys full of crooks who rob them of their meager savings with a promise of safe passage to freedom, and encounters with border guards.featured films that deal with the issue of war and the terrible emotional scars that it leaves on people.
focused on those unfortunate countries where the heartless elite impose their politics on their citizens using brutal police and secret agents, and who commit genocide and crimes against humanity to stay in power.The last program was dedicated to the fighters outside of the political system who fight for the environment, democracy, women’s rights, and, of course, anti-war protestors.Scanners, a two-day symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies, has been held annually for the past twelve years in conjunction with the festival.
It aims to create synergy of theoretical and practical discourses and stimulate exchange between filmmakers and animation scholars.Held as part of Animafest, Scanners is in English and open to the public.Another important part of the festival is Rise and Shine, a project development and pitching lab for first and second-time professional filmmakers and their short films of up to twenty minutes.
The event, organized by Animafest Zagreb and Animateka IAFF in collaboration with CEE Animation, is divided into three modules: focus on script, project follow-up, and focus on pitching.At the opening night ceremony, three very important and prestigious awards are handed out.The Animafest Festival Council can, at its discretion, present a Lifetime Achievement Award.
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Czech animator Michaela Pavlatova.I cannot think of a more worthy winner than Michaela.In presenting the award, the council said, “ She is often described as...
a feminist artist who expands the possibilities of creation and through her visually rich work explores the world of imagination and captures the deepest human experiences, enriching contemporary animation’s relationship with the body, sexuality, and intimacy.” Michaela certainly does all of that, but in her 2021 feature film, she is also able to portray the life and love of a Czech woman and an Afghan man in an era before the Taliban’s return to power.The film, which won Best Feature Film of 2022 at the Zagreb festival along with a César Award, not only addresses political events of the time but also portrays many aspects of intercultural relationships.Along with a retrospective screening of her films, Michaela gave a Master Class.
This year the Animafest Council was unanimous in its decision to give the award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies to Georges Sifianos.Anyone who knows Georges understands why this author, teacher, and scholar deserves this auspicious honor.Born in Greece, Georges studied painting and set design at the School of Applied Arts in Athens.
From there he attended Les Gobelins in Paris and received a PhD in Animation Aesthetico from the Sorbonne.In 1995, he established the Department of Animation Studies at ENSAD (L’Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) where he is now professor emeritus.Georges has contributed to numerous research projects and books.
Traditionally, the recipient of the Animation Studies Award gives the keynote address at Scanners.Georges’ topic was Animation and Ecology, a topic that is being widely discussed in European animation circles.The final award of the evening, given by the Student Film Competition Section Committee, was the Best Animation School Award.
This year, the honor went to the Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University in Potsdam, Germany.A gallery exhibition, featured a series of animations, drawings, and sketches by students at the Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University.A special screening of eight films by past and present students was also shown.
Even with all of the side events, film is still the backbone of Animafest Zagreb, which I think has some of the strongest programming of any animation festival.As always, the short film competition programs gave lots of food for thought.Very few animators work in porcelain, but Estonian Anu-Laura Tuttelberg has become a master not only of animating in that medium but also of shooting her films outdoors in challenging weather and difficult conditions.Anu-Laura’s ten-minute poetic stop motion film about winter is the second film in her planned trilogy about seasons.
The first film, (2019), was her first experience with shooting outdoors in the rainforests of Chiapas, Mexico, and the Peruvian Amazon.is a beautiful poem about Nordic nature - a tiny porcelain girl observes the onset of winter, which freezes the natural paradise where she lives and everything in it.The delicate handmade porcelain girl, birds, and animals were filmed outside on a beach in the Nordic winter, shot on 16 mm film using a 60-year-old Paillard-Bolex.
The theatre in Zagreb has no air conditioning and it felt like you were in a sauna, but as I watched it was as though I was on a snowy beach watching birds fly south and insects hide from the freezing wind and snow.The beautiful images from this film are still in my head.The short film jury agreed with me and awarded Anu-Laura the Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement.
which received its world premiere at Animafest, was another welcome surprise.The 13-minute film by Marta Reis Andrade is a Portuguese/French co-production.It tells the true story of a dog who has been left alone in his fenced-in yard with the remains of the other dead family dogs after the death of its owner.
But the story is about much more than the dog.It explores loneliness, homecoming, and reconnecting with your roots and family.The dog’s anguished howls that echo throughout the neighborhood are mirrored in the thoughts of a lonely old man and his granddaughter who has returned home after experiencing loneliness and isolation in London.
Marta, herself, has studied in Portugal, the Czech Republic, and finally at the Royal College of Art in London.She is now back in Porto, Portugal, working at BAP Animation Studio.is a strong, original story that bears the mark of high quality that films produced at the BAP Studio, which is a collective, all have in common.
The music, composed for the film by Grilo, added the right atmosphere to the story.As war seems to come closer and closer to us all, animators seem to be reaching back to the past to remind us of the everyday events and people whose lives were affected by past conflicts.Two such films are and , a three-minute film by Slovenian animators Lea Vucko and Damir Grbanovic tells the story of the border that cut through the Miren Cemetery in 1947, dividing it between Yugoslavia and Italy.
The wire fence that divided the cemetery in two was established by the Paris Peace Treaty.The new border split the cemetery, running through graves, dividing the living and the dead, and causing great disruption in the community.People were prevented from burying loved ones or visiting graves on the other side of the fence.
They were also not allowed to meet each other in the cemetery.The signing of the Treaty of Osimo in 1975 finally settled and corrected the border between the two countries, returning the entire cemetery to Yugoslavia.The story of the Miren Cemetery is a reminder that what seems solid and reliable today can change overnight.
One of my favorite films this year is the twelve-minute French/Russian co-production The film, by Alexey Evstigneev, is based on the true story of Professor Alexey Vangenheim, a government meteorologist, loyal Communist Party member, and victim of Stalin’s purges.He was arrested in 1934, taken to the Gulag on Slovki Islands located in the White Sea in Northern Russia, and executed in 1937.To keep his young daughter Eleonar under the illusion that he was traveling the world on a scientific mission, watching the Northern Lights, jumping in snow, and studying the resistance of plants to frost and snow, he wrote about his adventures in detailed letters.
He often included dried flowers in the letters to his daughter.Using stop motion along with 2D that utilizes pencil, paint, crayon, cut paper, and pressed flowers, the film is a haunting history lesson that shines a light on humanity in the face of fascism.I always find the Croatian Competition interesting.
This year, the winning film, by Niko Radas, particularly intrigued me.After graduating from the Sculpture Department of the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, Radas has been working at the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce where he has created an Art Therapy program that includes a music and film workshop.visualizes the experiences of mental illness, portraying them as characters leaving the human body and mind.
The film was created as part of Radas’ art therapy program by patients at the hospital who came up with the concept, created the production design, and voiced the characters. It is impossible to ignore the atrocities that Israel is unleashing on Gaza.Olga Bobrowska, animation scholar and festival director of the StopTrik Animation Festival, gave a lecture and screening about support for animators in Gaza.The groups AC4PAL (Animated Community for Palestine) and Palestine Animated have emerged and networked to support animators trapped under the most horrifying circumstances, which only get worse every day.
Her presentation focused on the work of Haneen Koraz, Nour A-Jawad, Shourug Darwish, and other organizers of workshops for children, young people, and women in Gaza to help them cope with the ongoing war and its terrible effects.If you are interested in learning more about the workshops, check out Haneen on Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/haneen.koraz And you can help with a donation.You can find out more about projects at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-haneen-koraz-empower-voices-through-arts Six books were presented at the festival.
As well as being an animator, musician, ex-president of the Ex Libris Society, and an educator Rastko Čirič is a prolific writer.His latest book, is a fun and educational resource for university students and curious people of all ages.It consists of five chapters that cover the five basic fields that animation deals with: Mechanics of Movement, Techniques of Animation, Process of Making a Cartoon Film, Development of Animation, and Animation for Youngsters.
This is the perfect book for anyone starting out in the animation world.Storyboards reveal how an idea acquires a visual expression.Editor Matija Pisacic presented two books of storyboards, one for the film by Chintis Lundgren and another book on a film by Simon Bogojevic Narath.
The storyboards are bilingual in Croatian and English.The books are printed in color, and in addition to the storyboards, there are sketches of the visual concepts, synopses, screenplays, and director’s statements.Each book is furnished with a QR code taking the reader to online visual materials that include interviews with the animators and the final versions of the films.
The books are printed with the financial support of the City of Zagreb and the Croatian Audiovisual Center.They are a wonderful addition to any animator’s bookshelf.by Midhat Ajanovic provides a history of Croatian animation as well as analyzing the background situations such as political, social, and cultural factors that influenced the tremendous international success in the heyday of Croatian animation from the 1960s to the 1980s.
As well as focusing on the Zagreb School of Animation, which was not an academic school, but a film studio, the book also delves into modern Croatian animation created after the independence of the country.This book will be a valuable resource for any animation historian.Marie-Josée-Saint Pierre’s book puts female pioneers at the NFB in the spotlight.
Utilizing a wide range of critical works and the cultural history of Canada, along with feminist art history and multiple studies on animation, Marie-Josée writes about the numerous achievements of the women at the NFB. Any animation historian or person researching women in the history of animation will find this book a great resource. I have already reviewed Thomas Renoldner’s book in a previous book review. The book is an account of the invention of the Stroboscopic Disks in 1833 by scientist Simon von Stampfer and lithographer Matthias Trentsensky.The disks show animated loops ranging from figurative to experimental scenes.
Along with historical text, the book contains 23 full-page images of the Optical Magic Disks.With the augmented reality app from Artivive, the disks can be viewed in motion.I also presented my book, In addition to all of the numerous film programs, there were six different art exhibitions.
As the recipient of the Life Time Achievement Award, a solo exhibition at the lovely Galerija Kraxjcar was devoted to Michaela Pavlatova’s work.It offered a unique insight into her creative world, from animation and experimental film to drawing, sketches, and a special focus on her video installation titled which was also the title of the exhibition.was a group exhibition of the work of 27 animators whose films were in the Short Film Grand Competition.
The exhibition included paintings, sketches, drawings, graphics, collages, storyboards, and models from their films.A separate exhibition featured 19 works from the Student Film Competition.There were three additional exhibitions.
Each year, the festival hosts a picnic for all of the guests.For the last couple of years, the picnic has taken place in the Ribnjak Park.The lovely park dates back to ancient times when it was the private park of the bishop of Zagreb.
As in the last few years, the picnic was catered by members of the Croatian Army, making it a truly unique event among festival parties.The army cooks definitely know how to make great beans and sausage.A big thank you goes out to Artistic Director Daniel Šuljič and Producers Paola Orlič and Matea Milič for the invitation to present my book at the festival.
I also want to thank all of the festival staff and volunteers for all of their hard work and for making my visit so enjoyable.The 2026 edition of the festival will be 8-13 June.Award-Winning Films
Grand Competition – Feature Film
Grand Prix: by Adam Elliot (Australia)
Special Mention: by the Quay Brothers (UK/Poland/Germany)
Grand Competition – Short Film
Grand Prix: by Sasha Svirsky (Germany)
Golden Zagreb Award: by Anu-Laura Tuttelberg (Estonia/Lithuania)
Zlatko Grgić Award: by Mato Uljarević (Montenegro)
Student Film Competition
Dušan Vukotić Award: by Naomi Noir (Netherlands)
Special Mentions:
by Evridiki Papaiakovou (Estonia)
by Qi Duan (China)
Croatian Film Competition
Best Film: by Niko Radas
Special Mentions:
by Vuk Jevremović
by Jelena Milunović (Serbia/Croatia/Germany)
Films for Children and Youth
Best Film: by Aaron Blaise (USA)
Special Mentions:
by Fiona Rolland (Belgium)
by Sameh Alaae (France)
Audience Awards
Best Feature Film: by Kristina Dufková (Czechia/Slovakia/France)
Best Short Film: by Jan Saska (Czechia/France/Slovakia/Bosnia-Herzegovina)
