Expanded Animation exhibitions and installations will open in Šira Gallery and Tunnel Grič prior to today's Grand Opening of the 27th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb.

At 12:00 Šira Gallery will present a group exhibition of recent student works from the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb, Department of Animation and New Media (OZAFIN ALU), made between 2012-2017. The exhibition will be opened by Milan Trenc, Chair of the Department of Animation and New Media, ALU Zagreb. The selection of films aims to present a snapshot of what the Department of Animation and New Media looks like now and best works by its students in many different techniques.

At 15:00, Tunnel Grič (entrance from Tomićeva 5, Art Park) will open an expanded animation installation Bioscope by Maarten Isaäk De Heer (huge animated painting in the style of painters like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch made possible by impressive technique called lenticular printing) and Animation and VR (a selection of films in virtual reality produced by Google Spotlight Story – Pearl by Oscar awarded filmmaker Patrick Osborne, and music video Saturnz Barz by Gorillaz as well as Canadian NFB production Minotaur by Munro Ferguson, made by using the world's first freehand stereoscopic 3D animation software).

At 21:30, Ljetno kino Gradec will screen Corto Maltese in Siberia, an adaptation of one of the canonical albums about the comic book medium's most famous sailor.

Opening Ceremony of 27th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb will take place at 19:30 in Cinema Europa. The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Borivoj Dovniković – Bordo, and the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies will be preseted to Maureen Furniss. The award for the Best Animation School will go to Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague – FAMU while the ASIFA Prize for Outstanding Achievements in The Art of Animation will be presented to Jean-François Laguionie. Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić will open the festival.