The beginning of the festival weekend is dedicated to Borivoj Dovniković Bordo (1930-2022), a giant of the Zagreb School of Animation, one of the founders and most important people in the history of Animafest, who managed it for many years, and in the remaining years provided unreserved support to those who did it before, after and with him. At 2 p.m., in the presence of representatives of the City of Zagreb, Animafest and festival guests, Borivoj Dovniković Bordo’s Park on Trešnjevka, between Nova cesta and Yuri Gagarin Promenade, will be inaugurated. ‘Bordo’s Day’ continues with the opening of the exhibition of cartoons from his legacy at 4 p.m. at the Oto Reisinger House of Cartoons (Radićeva 44) and with the screening of a work-in-progress biographical documentary Learning to Walk 2 by Jelena Novaković at KIC at 6 p.m.

The regular film programme starts again at 9:30 a.m. in Kinoteka with the Films for Children Competition 2 (7-10 years old), with guests Ignas Meilūnas and Justė Beniušytė, director and producer of Hoofs on Skates, and Martin Smatana, director of Hello Summer. At 14:00 at the same place, Films for Youth Competition (15+ years) is accompanied by a conversation with Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne and Flavie Carin (On the 8th Day) and Eirik Heggen (Pinea). The Films for Children Competition 2 (ages 7-10) can be seen at the People’s University of Sesvete at 10 a.m.

A special treat of Kinoteka’s Animafest Friday will certainly be the restored classics of Jiří Barta at 4 p.m.: the short film The Vanished World of Gloves from 1982, in which glove-actors paraphrase seven film genres (from Chaplin’s chase to SF horror), and the feature-length masterpiece The Pied Piper from 1986, an interpretation of a medieval German legend and one of the most complex puppet films ever made. This is followed by the Grand Competition Short Film 2 (6 p.m.), while the evening is reserved for the central (and last) screening of the fantastic Hungarian feature-length animated documentary (the first in the country’s history) Pelikan Blue (8 p.m.), a nostalgic and playful testimony of a group of young railway ticket forgers in post-socialist Hungary. The screening will be graced by the film’s producer Sissy Cui and character designer Máté Horesnyi.

At the MM Centre, Friday is also marked by big names, but primarily in a discursive format. At 10:30, the masterclass is held by the legend of American independent animation, Bill Plympton, with whom fans mingled late last night at an informal drawing session and conversation in the lobby of the SC Cinema after the screening of his new feature Slide. Plympton will talk about his career and inspirations, but also about surviving as an independent animator in an industry run by corporate studios. At 11:30, the speaker will be Naomi Van Niekerk, South African animator and member of the Grand Competition Short Film jury, who will talk about her stop-motion technique, as well as drawing with light and shadow. At 12:30 p.m., Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated animator, director and scenographer Barry JC Purves will follow with a lecture about his rich career. At 2:00 p.m., the revived Emile Awards, the European professional animation awards, will be presented by Vassilis C. Karamitsanis, Nancy Denney-Phelps and Daniel Šuljić. At 2:30 p.m., Feinaki Beijing Animation Week, a Beijing festival founded in 2019, will be presented, and its artistic director Yantong Zhu will speak about it. The MM Centre will not be deprived of a film programme even today – at 6 p.m. we are watching the longer version of Boris Labbé’s new film Glass House with a conversation with the author. An abstract experimental work inspired by science fiction and equipped with both immersive and disruptive sound will take us on an incredible journey between artificial intelligence and the creative genius of Animafest’s winner from 2018. At sunset of the penultimate day of the festival, we will laugh with the dark humour segment of this year’s theme programme (8 p.m.), in which a Q&A with Carlo Vogele, the author of the film Una furtiva lagrima, will assist us.

On Friday, MSU shows only two time slots, but the entire program dedicated to the funny sides of human nature (5 p.m.) and the second and last screening of Sultana’s Dream (7 p.m.) are more than enough reasons to head to Novi Zagreb on Friday as well.

The SC Cinema starts at 11 a.m. with World Panorama 3, after which Kunyi Chen, the author of the film Rien, is a guest as part of the Verbal Humour program (1 p.m.). Two blocks of the Student Film Competition follow – 2 (15:30) and 4 (17:30), with the second being the classic Animafest Q&A crowd that only Nino Kovačić knows how to conduct. We talk to: Chu-Chieh Lee (Minus Plus Multiply), Chaerin Yoo (A Pathetic Man), Mansi Maheshwari (Bunnyhood), Tan Lui Chan (Keep Out); Jan Leeuwerck (Sunny Beach), Petra Pavetić Kranjčec (Chicks), Lorca Alonso (Love and Pretence), Dashka Dementeva and Rebeka Kruus (The Story of a Monkey, a Bear and a Caterpillar).

The evening at SC is reserved for two blocks of Grand Competition Short Film – 5 (8 p.m.) and 6 (10 p.m.). At both screenings, we will, of course, be joined by the authors: Gustavo Arteaga (Falling for Greta), Viktória Traub and Mira Benes (Shoes and Hoofs), Osman Cerfon (Aaaah!), Sanni Lahtinen (animator of Elli Vuorinen’s Flower Show), Irina Rubina (Contradiction of Emptiness), Gábor Mariai (animator of the film 27 by Flóra Anna Buda) and Alice Saey (Flatastic).