Tuesday is the first fully programmed festival day at Animafest 2024, starting at 9:30 a.m. in the Kinoteka Cinema, it is opened by the youngest viewers who will first enjoy the Films for Children Competition 1 (3-6 years old), followed by the Films for Children Competition 3 (11-14 years old), with a conversation with the authors Dino Mileta (producer of Secret Garden by Filip Gašparović Melis), Ester Kasalova (World I Live In), Silvana Roth (Waldeinsamkeit), Julia Hazuka (The Grand Mother), Thomas Künstler (Pink Mountain) and Kristel Tõldsepp (producer of the film Photo that Came to Life). The talks are hosted by Višnja Pentić. The first segment is characterised by stories about friendship, and the third contains messages about the supremacy of real over digital life, nature over urban alienation, creativity and sports over violence, as well as fables about first loves and victory over fears. Films for Children Competition 1 will also be shown at 10 a.m. at the People’s University Sesvete.

At 9:30 a.m., the new edition of the Animafest Scanner symposium, unique in the world of animation festivals, begins at KIC. Today’s two panels, after a keynote lecture by Ingo Petzke (winner of the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies) on the foundations of digital animation, bring discussions on the topics of studying early animation and the role of editing in animated film. The speakers are Robby Gilbert, Olga Bobrowska, Jack McGrath, Max Hattler, Iva Kraljević, Bill Kinder and Samuel Baptista Mariani. Moderators are Nikica Gilić and Andrijana Ružić.

At 10 a.m., AFN Edu, a programme intended for animation students, dedicated to their mobility and international cooperation, will start at the MM Centre. It is organised by the network of five most important festivals in Central and Eastern Europe, coordinated by Animafest, and 12 higher education institutions from all over the world have confirmed their participation. Although the AFN Edu programme is closed to the public, from 11:30 a.m. Portuguese director João Gonzalez will give a lecture at the same venue, talking about writing, directing, animating and composing his Oscar-nominated film The Ice Merchants.

The SC Cinema opens its doors at 11 a.m. with the World Panorama 2 containing new works by Alex Rey (witty Parakeets plays with the repeated ‘retirements’ of Hayao Miyazaki), Rune Callewaert (Aquarium), Tzor Edery and Tom Prezman (Maurice’s Bar), Tess Martin (1976: Search for Life), Fish Wang (Ghost of the Dark Path) and Saer Seo (Swimming).

In the Kranjčar Gallery at 1 p.m., an exhibition of the winner of the Animafest Lifetime Achievement Award, Phil Mulloy, The End of Innocence, will open with 30 drawings and previously unseen films of ‘the greatest anarchist among animators and the greatest animator among anarchists’. Mulloy stepped into animated film in the late 1980s because of the freedom and autonomy of worldbuilding that this medium offers. Creating films using a simplified technique of drawing with ordinary black ink and pen on paper, he realised a stylistically coherent oeuvre recognisable for its raw expression and minimalism, as well as its uncompromising reflection on human nature and society. Mulloy’s drawings are filled with sarcasm and black humour while rejecting all kinds of dogma and authoritarianism, materialism and conformism.

At 1 p.m. in the MM Centre, the winner of this year’s Best Animation School Award, the French institution La Poudrière, will be presented. An introduction to the screening of 18 films from recent history (2007-2023) will be given by the director of the school, Annick Teninge. At the same time, in SC Cinema you can see Student Film Competition 3 with the world premiere of Marija Dakszewicz’s Duck Soup and the international premiere of Humanity by Tereza Kovandová, as well as the Croatian Windows from the South by Eugen Bilankov, the wonderful See You Champion! by Alexis Mouron, the impressive classicism of Stabat Mater by a group of authors, the existentialist court drama/SF A Clock Trial by Sébastien Helias, etc. Moreover, the whole afternoon at SC is dedicated to this competition, as they are followed by the Student Film Competition 4 (15: 30, the world premieres of the Croatian film Chicks by Petra Pavetić Kranjčec and the Korean A Pathetic Man by Chaerin Yoo) and Student Film Competition 1 (5:30 p.m.), the latter followed by a conversation with the authors: Pola Kazak (Weeds), Simón Bucher, Claudia Saldivia, Amanda Rivera (The Feast), Chenxi Zhang and Yining Sun (Braided), Madeleine Homan (The Creators), Lara Torp (Not You), Emile Lachkar (Vidalia) and José Prats (Adios, the world premiere of an extraordinary film from the NFTS about the relationship between a father and son who is about to go to work abroad). In the Student Film Competition, genre and technically differentiated works with themes of examination of body identity in a wide range from queer and coming out to sexuality and romantic relationships, female perspectives, reflection on family, digital alienation, misanthropy, adaptations of literary, traditional and classical music sources stand out. All screenings of the Student Film Competition are free.

At 4:00 p.m., part of a large retrospective of Czech animated cinema (Focus on Czechia), selected by Pavel Horáček, is shown in Kinoteka. The first block is dedicated to local humour, and the list includes the classics such as Trnka, Pojar, Brdečka, Koutský, Haberle, Saska, Májová, Plachý, Macourek, Bedřich and Látal. The theme programme of Animafest 2024 is also dedicated to humour, and its 4th segment Verbal Humour can be viewed at the Museum of Contemporary Art from 5 p.m. It opens with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in Chuck Jones’s Rabbit Seasoning, and closes with Cavandoli’s La Linea series. In between are Kirsten Lepore, Jochen Kuhn, Maria Lassnig, Nicolas Keppens, Adam Elliot and others. Also at 5 p.m., but at KIC, the books Chinese Animated Film and Ideology: Tradition, Innovation, and Interculturality by Olga Bobrowska and Predavanja o filmskom modernizmu by Nikica Gilić will be presented, as well as vinyl editions of music by Tomislav Simović (Professor Balthazar and Zagreb School of Animated Film – Original Soundtracks 1961-1982) published by Fox and His Friends by Željko Luketić and Leri Ahel.

The evening programme opens with the Grand Competition – Short Film 5 at 6 pm in Kinoteka. The witty puppet film Falling for Greta by Gustavo Arteaga about a woman who ‘falls’ for a plumber, Viktória Traub’s Shoes and Hooves about a centaur who fulfils her desire for shoes in a relationship with a rich crocodile shoemaker, Daria Kashcheeva’s hybrid Electra about a girl’s personal memory on the border between psychotherapy and performance, miniature about children’s nature Aaaah! by Osman Cerfon and The Bitch by Carla Melo Gampert about a girl-bird who ‘flies away from home’ to experience carnal pleasures and disappointments are the attractive titles of this block. At the same time, World Panorama 1 is being shown in the MM Centre, in which we can single out the new works of another satirist Peter Millard, The Circle of Life, Lucas Malbrun’s Margarethe 89, and Jadwiga Kowalska’s The Car That Came Back from the Sea, but above all, the intriguing Kissing Day by the author under the pseudonym Ligebita Libera. It is the world premiere of a Serbian-Chilean co-production that deals with the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Russia and the fate of journalist and activist Elena Kostyuchenko. Due to the protection of the author’s identity, instead of talking to her, a short interview that she previously gave to the festival’s media office will be read in the theatre. ASIFA will present its profile, activities and regional branches at 18:00 at KIC. President Deanna Morse, Secretary General Thomas Renoldner and regional branch representatives Holger Lang, Stefan Stratil, Peihong Li, Johnchill Lee, Jane Flint, Hiroshi Onishi, Takashi Fukumoto, Makiko Nagao and Kata Gugić are speaking.

At 7 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicken for Linda! by Sebastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta has the honour of opening Grand Competition – Feature Film. At the centre of the comic plot is a chase for chicken, from which a single mother wants to make her daughter’s favourite dish that reminds her of her father. A rich ensemble of characters contributes to the realistic setting, but also to the best French humour. The likeable, energetic and often hilarious film offers an insight into the challenges of single motherhood and dealing with the loss of a family member, but thanks to elements of a musical, fast pace, fluid movement and very expressive colours, it maintains a cheerful tone and airiness.

At 20:00 in SC cinema, it's the turn of the Grand Competition – Short Film 2 with a conversation with the authors: Zarja Menart (The Three Birds), Seokho Shin (In the Clouds, international premiere) and Alejandra Moffat (co-writer of Notebook of Names). Among other works, it is worth highlighting the world premiere of the film Uncles and I, the summer pastoral memories of Klaus Hoefs realized with attractive pencil graphics, La Voix des Sirenes by the Italian master Gianluigi Toccafondo and A Very Twisted Tale by Catherine Buffat and Jean-Luc Gréc. At 20:00 at Kinoteka, the Grand Competition – Feature Film continues with When Adam Changes – a Canadian caricature-grotesque coming-of-age film based on a realized metaphor, references to Beavis and Butthead, but also strong emotions. The third option for 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday is offered by the MM Centre, where a segment of the theme humour programme shows satires by legends in the world of animation: Osamu Tezuka (Jumping), Nick Park (Creature Comforts), Joanna Quinn (Britannia), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog), Richard Condie (The Big Snit), Nedeljko Dragić (Passing Days), Borivoj Dovniković Bordo (Learning to Walk) and others.

At 10pm at SC Cinema, the first part of Phil Mulloy’s retrospective features 11 works from the 1990s such as Murder!, The Conformist, Outrage, The Sound of Music, The Chain, Wind of Changes and Intolerance I. Mulloy will attend the screening and greet the audience. At the same time, German artist, university professor and regular Animafest guest Max Hattler will perform his new audiovisual performance Pattern/Sound: Live in the MM Centre, which, inspired by the avant-garde experiments of the 20th century, explores the synesthetic space of graphic sound. Performance is complementary to Hattler’s presentation ‘Revisiting Graphical Sound’ at this year’s Animafest Scanner symposium.