Sunday evening in a French style
Tonight, we’ll celebrate the French esprit. Cinema Květen as well as the open air cinema will offer feature films of French provenience.
In Květen, it’s „The painting“ by classic Jean – François Laguionie. Original story (about the figures of an unfinished painting, who are trying to find their creator) is reflected also in the artistic concept of the film, deeply and brightly coloured. Another French feature avoiding Czech distribution – so don’t miss it tonight at AniFest! (9:30 p.m.).
If you prefer fresh air, you can visit Paris tonight. The competition feature „A Cat in Paris“ is situated in the streets as well as on the roofs of this magical metropolis. Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol from the legendary Folimage studio used classical hand-drawn animation to tell a thrilling story about a cat named Dino, who’s leading a double life. Artistically elaborated tribute to the genre of film noir awarded with an Oscar nomination will please audience of all ages. Tonight at 9:30 in the open air cinema right next to the Culture house – and for free!
Animated music videos in competition
Haroula Rose, OvePictures: Free To Be Me
The competition of music videos and jingles is already a traditional part of the festival. And this year again, we’ve received a few very interesting works, by famous authors as well as by young talents. Let’s begin with the biggest star – Bill Plympton with his video about a hard life of celebrities called TMZ. The representative of new and progressive Japanese animation Mirai Mizue created a video for the song Toru Matsumota, using his typical variations abstract forms. Massimo Ottoni is original due the the technique of glass-painting (Wheels and Love).
The most „freaky“ and absurd video is definitely Freak Out-luv Ka The End, the first stop-motion in this genre ever. In the opening video for the film Luv Ka The End, ten Indian actors are communicating with the pictures on their T-Shirts…
And finally, we can’t forget the local representants. We still feel like home in Slovakia, that’s why the video Free To Be Me by the increasingly interesting duo OvéPictures is mentioned as local. Czech director Jana Hrušková is the author of the video called „Hope“, a song by Czech singer Karolína Kamberská. From the Turkish – Czech cooperation a video inspired by animation of unusual materials celebrating the spirit of Hermína Týrlová was born. Circus Love by Akile Nazli Kaye will have its Czech premiere at AniFest. Ginger breads and marzipan-hearts will be made alive…
A Letter to Momo – long-expected anime in the feature films competition
Hiroyuki Okiura needed seven years to finish hist last feature Momo e no Tegami/ A Letter To Momo. The story of Momo, a girl who’s moving from Tokyo to an island with her mother after the death of her father is a brilliant example of classic hand-drawn animation and presents the best in contemporary anime production. Momo meets mysterious little elves on the island and they help her overcome the loss and find out, what the letter to Momo was supossed to say…a moving story about grief, great loss, growing up and finding your own self is full of imagination, sometimes scary, sometimes black-humoured or even absurd. The screening in Teplice might be an unique chance to see it on the big screen – an must-see not just for all anime-fans. We’re curious how will Momo hold up against Parisian cats from Folimage or our Phil Mulloy’s rebel Mr. Christie, who’s coming back after last year’s succes.
Japanese animation is not only about anime, no need to point out. AniFest will also bring a retrospective of two Japanese directors, who were closely connected to Czech animation. Kihachiro Kawamoto (1925 – 2010) was Japanese puppet designer, animator and director. He was deeply interested in Jiří Trnka’s work and he spent one year in his studio in Prague. Nobuhiro Aihara (1944 – 2011) is another great name of Japanese animation, animator and professor at Kyoto University. He was a frequent guest at FAMU (Prague Academy of Performing Arts), where he had many colleagues and friends (Michaela Pavlátová among others).
The programme is curated by prof. Jiří Kubíček from FAMU, who was in close and personal contact with both directors.
New competition category – non-narative and experimental animation
We are happy to announce that AniFest 2012 will present a new competition category. Till 20 December you are welcome to send us your film, if you think it’s rather non-narrative, abstract, in one way or another just done differently than a classical narrative and figurative animated film.
The impulse for a new category came partly from the authors themselves and partly from us, because we just couldn‘t not notice the amount of submitted films of this kind. Who saw competition films at AniFest 2011 couldn‘t miss the fact that a significant amount of the films were rather experimental, based more on atmosphere and artistical expression rather than on a story. It’s not so difficult to understand that many of conceptual audivisual works meant for exhbitions and galleries are using animation. We noticed this tendencies in the work of Czech authors as well as from abroad and one thing is clear – these films do not follow the same paths and aims as narrative films and if anybody wants to judge them, he must use different criteria in comparison with narrative animation. Non-narrative films were selected for the competition of AniFest before, but were never awarded, which only confirms what was said above – that the jury doesn’t know how to judge these works together with classical animation and that’s why they basically „have no chance“. And we decided to create a space which will offer this kind of art what it deserves – a relevant context and a special jury.
We thus invite all progressive authors to submit their films and we’re looking forward to whatever the new category will bring us…
Call for entries is now closed
Many thanks to all animators who have submitted their film to the competition of AniFest 2012, we’ve received almost 1500 submissions from all around the world! Our selection committee is working hard right now, we will publish the list of selected films here on our webpage at the end of January and we will of course contact all authors of selected films via email.
We’d like to kindly ask all authors of submitted films to send us the DVD as soon as possible if they haven’t done it yet – all films must be delivered to our address (Jindricha Plachty 28, Praha 5, 150 00, Czech Republic) on 30 December 2011 the latest.
Also, we’d like to remind you that it’s still possible to submit your film in one of the following categories: Films made by children up to 12 years of age and Films made by children from 12 to 15 years of age. The deadline is 20 January 2012. EntryForm HERE.
Our Exchange Forum is also still open for your projects of animated short films.
