Once again this year, within the Animafest Pro festival segment, the audience will have a chance to meet and talk to festival guests, Grand Competition filmmakers competing for the main award – the Grand Prix. All Q&A’s take place at French Institute Mediatheque, Preradovićeva 5.

The first Q&A is the one with Benjamin Renner, one of the three directors of Ernest and Celestine, the opening film of Animafest Zagreb 2013, coming to Zagreb as the recipient of César, the most important French film award. Renner’s variations on Gabrielle Vincent’s model evidence him as a talented artist. In four years of work on Ernest and Celestine he proved to be an outstanding authors’ team leader. Q&A is scheduled for Wednesday, 5 June, 1pm.

On Thursday, 6 June, at 1pm his work on the film A Liar’s Autobiography – the Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman will be presented by one of the three authors, Jeff Simpson. Known as the producer of the legendary TV show Top of the Pops, Simpson has worked on BBC for 12 years.

Korean-born Belgian filmmaker Jung will speak about his life told through the film Approved for Adoption. Jung is one of the 200 thousand children adopted during the Korean War. The film is based on his autobiographic comic book and he also made all the drawings in the film. Q&A with Jung is scheduled for Friday, 7 June, at 1pm.

On Saturday, 8 June, at 1pm, two filmmakers will be presented: Christopher Sullivan and Mamoru Hosoda. American author Christopher Sullivan has pursued theatre and experimental film for 30 years and it took him almost 15 years to finish the film Consuming Spirits, carefully animated frame by frame in collage, pencil drawing and stop motion.

Mamoru Hosoda, one of the most acclaimed Japanese animation filmmakers, whose films are loved by the audiences of all generations. His long expected film Wolf Children became the second biggest box-office hit in Japan in the first weekend after the opening.

In addition to Q&A’s, Grand Competition authors will attend production analyses as well. On Wednesday, 5 June, at 4pm, Cineplexx Kaptol Centre Hall 3, director and screenwriter Jean-François Laguionie and screenwriter Anick Le Ray will talk about their work on The Painting from the production and creative point of view of European feature animation.

Famous Italian filmmaker Enzo d’Alò (director, writer, animator) and Maricla Affatato (co-producer, voice/Fox) will present the new version of the legendary fairy tale Pinocchio, which will also be presented in Grand Competition. The production analysis takes place on Friday, 7 June, at 4pm, Cineplexx Kaptol Centre Hall 3.