The Animafest Council has decided to give this year’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies to the internationally acclaimed German expert in film and video art, focused in particular on experimental film, who in addition to his scholarly and creative work has great merits in university-level educational process. Ingo Petzke, over the course of his long career at university institutions from Germany to Australia and New Zealand, has instilled generations of young people with love to creative work and research, especially in the field of interactive media and avant-garde film art.

Born in Osnabrück in 1947, he studied at the universities of Münster and Bochum, graduating in Journalism, Scandinavian Studies and Contemporary History in 1973, but his interest in film led him to the work as an associate at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. In 1980, with a few of his students, he established the Experimental Film Workshop in Osnabrück, which in the late eighties grew to become the European Media Art Festival (EMAF).

In 1983, Petzke became a film professor at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt. He lived and worked in Australia – as a visiting professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane (1992), and as an associate professor at the Bond University on the Gold Coast. After a PhD based on his published works from 2004, in 2006 he earned a PhD at the University of Osnabrück with a thesis on director Phillip Noyce. After that he became an associate professor and research associate at the James Cook University and Cairns Institute.

His contribution is perhaps most tangible in practice (as a mentor and supervisor he took part in the production of a large number of award-winning student films, he curated film programmes and retrospective DVD compilations of prominent experimental masters of experimental film art), but this doesn’t diminish his impact on film studies. At Animafest Zagreb 1998, a time when Zagreb did not yet have a university course in animation, he initiated, designed and mentored the first international student workshop. Of course, his articles and reviews published in many international magazines are of particular importance, as well as his Experimental Film Handbook published by Deutsches Filmmuseum from Frankfurt. All things considered, Petzke has been, among foreign scholars, one of the most deserving for the affirmation and understanding the importance of Animafest Zagreb in the global context. He is a member of the German Film Critics Association and Australian Film Producers Association.

Ingo Petzke will be the keynote speaker at this year's Animafest Scanner XI 2024 international symposium which takes place 5-6 June 2024 as part of the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb 2024.

Margit Antauer, Animafest Zagreb Festival Council