You don’t have to wait all until the beginning of the festival for a piece of god festival atmosphere! You can feel it earlier as well, at a series of free open-air screenings at city parks, Animafest’s gift to its audience at family film picnics. Last year the blanket turnout was huge, and this year Animafest is organising five picnic-screenings: two at Zrinjevac and three at Ribnjak.

So do prepare your blankets and picnic hampers on time and save the date for the best cinema in town, the open-air park lawns!

Animafest’s first picnics are set for 28 and 29 May at Zrinjevac, beginning with a programme for the youngest audience at 5pm – the Film Beginner workshop, intended for children age 5-10, in association with Restart. 

Children will be introduced to basic elements of film and media-making, i.e. the cornerstones of film editing and photography. What are the options and ways of composing a story, what is a shot, how is it made, what are the capabilities of print and how is time registered? All this and much more will be presented to the youngest audience in two slots, at 5pm and 7pm. The number of participants is limited and applications are welcome – we kindly ask you to enter by 27 May on [email protected].

On Saturday, 28 May, at 9.30pm Zrinjevac is hosting a free screenings of the best last year’s festival film to the audience choice, the dreamlike Song of the Sea by Tomm Moore, a visually attractive creative success which pleased both audience and critics across the world and thrilled the Zagreb audience. 

It is a story about a seal child Saoirse and her brother Ben on an epic journey to save the magical world and reveal the secrets of their past. They are haunted by the owl witch Macha and many ancient and mythical creatures, but Saoirse and Ben race against time to awaken Saoirse’s powers and preserve the spirit world from vanishing.

On Sunday, 29 May, following the afternoon picnic, Zrinjevac turns into a time travel machine and gives you a chance to see the gems from the golden age of the Zagreb School of Animation, celebrating the anniversary of 65 years of Croatian animation. The line-up includes the first ever Croatian animated film The Great Meeting by Walter Neugebauer (1951), followed by three Oscar-nominated works – Nedjeljko Grgić’s Tup-Tup, Bob Godfrey and Zlatko Grgić’s Dream Doll, and Dušan Vukotić’s The Play. And finally, there is the only Croatian Oscar winner, also Vukotić’s The Substitute.

Croatian Oscar winners also serve to announce one of this year’s appealing festival programmes, dedicated to the influence of Academy Awards on animation.

Early-bird passes are already available for sale by 22 May, providing admission to all the festival screenings and over 300 films for only 150 kuna. If you seek those suitable to your taste and interest, feel free to ask Oscar, The Substitute and Animafes’t Mandlek mascot this first weekend, so don’t forget to pack you picnic hampers and join us 28 and 29 May at Zrinjevac!