The 33rd edition of the World Animated Film Festival - Animafest Zagreb begins

At the official opening of Animafest 2023, representatives of the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Audiovisual Center, the embassies of several countries, the International Association of Animated Film ASIFA and others announced their arrival, along with the festival guests who had arrived in Zagreb by then distinguished guests. In honor of the winner of the Animafest 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, William Kentridge, who will attend the opening, his film "City Deep" will be shown with a musical performance by Alen and Nenad Sinkauz and Maja Rivić. The award for the best animation school on behalf of the National Film and Television School - NFTS from the United Kingdom will be accepted by Robert Bradbrook, head of the animation studio there. The Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Study of Animated Film will also be awarded to British professor Suzanne Buchan.

The opening ceremony is intended exclusively for protocol guests, but the festival's rich film and exhibition programs for all visitors are in full swing. Last weekend, films from the Family Program and the Children's Film Competition were shown in the city's culture centers in Dubrava, Maksimir and Travno. Today at 1 p.m. in Gallery Šira, an exhibition of undergraduate and graduate films, sets, puppets, animated sequences and AR sketches by students of the Academy of Arts of the University of Nova Gorica will be officially opened, and Koljo Saksid will address the audience in addition to Animafest curator Paola Orlić and artistic director Daniel Šuljić. The exhibition can be viewed every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

All other festival exhibitions, which will have their official opening later this week, can also be viewed already today - "Behind the Scenes 5", a traditional exhibition of works by authors represented in the Grand Competition, is set up in the SC Gallery (11 a.m.-7 p.m.). short film and the Student Film Competition, in the Kranjčar Gallery (12-7 p.m.) there is an unmissable exhibition of drawings, graphics, video and AV installation by William Kentridge "Circulus vitiosus" from the private collection of Lah Contemporary, in the lobby of Kina SC (10 a.m.-10 p.m.) are comic-mobiles by Irene Jukić Pranjić, an experimental innovation that combines comics, animation and the experiences of optical and mechanical toys, and in the Sek Hall ALU Mapping: Planet Kanca Manca from 4 to 8 p.m. presents scenographic elements to which the elements of the Animafest 2023 festival highlight are applied through video mapping. , the work of MA animation students at OZAFIN ALU in Zagreb under the mentorship of Ivan Marušić Klif. Entry to all Animafest exhibition programs is free.

The film program on the first day of the festival (June 5) includes the Grand Competition of Short Film 1, which is scheduled as part of the opening ceremony. Screening: João Gonzalez's Oscar-nominated Ice Merchants, a touching film about a father and son based on an original parachute premise and perspective, Laen Sanchez's ecological PLSTC created with the help of AI, Susanna Jirkuff's "charred" critique of the bourgeois mind Where I Live, the new puppet-film by Lea Vidaković "Obiteljski portret " -  darkly humorous observation of the invasion of a family home in the twilight of Austria-Hungary, a poignant Ukrainian film about children's experience of the Russian invasion of Mariupol. "Stotinu noći" by Sofia Melnjik, the reference-filled, philosophical-landscape "Paralelna zemlja" by the Japanese artist ALIMO, and the charming Belgian "Marrons glacés" by Delphine Hermans and Michel Vandam about the spicy reminiscences of an old woman lost in hospital corridors. Film critic and political scientist Boško Picula will talk to the authors of the films after the screening. The screening of the Grand Short Film Competition 1 for all Animafest visitors is scheduled for Thursday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the &TD Theater.

HAVC Press Release