Animateka International Animated Film Festival

Animateka International Animated Film Festival is a specialised competitive festival which focuses on Central and East European animated film production. It was established in 2004 but it's root extends 6 years further in the past when the Slovenian Cinematheque introduced a special monthly programme focusing on animated film. Today Animateka is produced by the 2 Reels - Association for Reanimation of Storytelling and Kinodvor Cinema. The festival programme is taking place at the Kinodvor Cinema and at the Slovenian Cinematheque in Ljubljana each year in the second week of December.

Festival sections

The Animateka International Animated Film Festival has 9 sections and two of them are competitive. The main festival section, the Competition Programme, is focusing on contemporary animated film production in Central and Eastern European countries. Because of that the Animateka festival is receiving a great attention also in the larger international context although the much older and bigger Animafest Zagreb is taking place near. Even a greater international attention is attracting the second competitive section, The Elephant in Competition, introduced with the last edition of the festival in 2009. Namely, The Elephant in competition is focusing on animated film production meant for the young audience. The section existed already before but as before said just last year became competitive.

The Eastern and Central European Panorama section is a kind of an extension of the main competitive section as it broadens it's overview on Central and Eastern European animated film production. With it's European Student Panorama section Animateka festival is giving a special focus also on the animated film production by European film schools and art academies. As it's name already explains the Best of the Rest section is presenting a carefully selected programme from other parts of the world, bringing the attention to well known directors and awarded films. The Jury Programme section is one of the great peculiarities of the Animateka festival. It gives to each member of the main international jury a possibility to direct the attention of the audience to a certain director or to a certain tendency in the past or contemporary animated film production. In the past years the Animateka festival screened several amazing personal retrospectives in that section, like Koji Yamamura retrospective, Georges Schwizgebel retrospective and Osvaldo Cavandoli retrospective.

The most extensive festival section is the Special Programme section as it incorporates several under-sections. Those undersections are usually retrospectives, overviews of certain national animated film productions or festival programmes, regional focuses, etc. In the past years there were some excellent programmes like the Stop Motion retrospective, focuses on Polish, Basque, Norwegian, Canadian, Yugoslav and Finnish animated film production, a special program on animated films linked to the human rights subject, etc.

A special section is dedicated also to feature length animated films. Some of those films are later included in the Slovene Art Cinema Network's distribution. Last of the Animateka festival's sections is also one of the most popular among the audience - this is the The Elephant section that brings a carefully selected educational animated film programme meant for schools and families with children.

Each years the Animateka festival brings also a rich and diverse Accompanying Programme. In includes puppet shows, exhibitions, concerts, workshops and meetings between artists, scholars, curators and the audience.

Festival awards and contests

Each year the international five members jury, composed by artists, curators and/or scholars is conferring the main festival award and five special mentions (one by each member). The main festival award, the Animateka Grand Prix, goes to one or two selected works from the Competition programme, while each member of the jury has also the right to confer the Special mention to another film of his choice from the Competition programme. In the past years the award went to films like Four (Š tyri) by Ivana Šebestova, NightStill by Elke Groen, Homeland by Juan de Dios Marfil Atienze, Crocodile by Kaspar Jancis and many others.

The jury composed by the selected representatives from audience is giving away the Maestro Audience Award (to any film from the whole festival programme), while the children’s jury is granting the NLB Vita Award for the selected work from the Elephant children's programme. Among the receivers of the two above mentioned awards are films Log Jam: The Snake by Alexei Alexev, Vasilisa by Darina Shmidt, Tôt ou tard by Jadwiga Kowalska, Land of the Heads by Céderic Louis and Claude Barras, and others.

For the second year the Animateka festival programme is including also a special contest web and mobile device based animations called AnimaWeb.

External links

Animateka International Animated Film Festival website

Animateka International Animated Film Festival

Contents

Festival sections

Festival awards and contests

See also

External links

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