The beginning of the festival weekend will as usual be marked by the highlights of the professional and discursive events of Animafest 2023. Rise & Shine at the MM Centre continues with individual sessions with Michael Dudok de Wit and Pedro Rivero. Jury member and Animafest award-winning author Tal Kantor ("Zlatko Grgić" Award 2022) will hold a lecture at &TD at 10 a.m. about the work on her latest film Letter to a Pig, and Dino Krpan will present a production analysis at the same place from 11:30 a.m. of the film Cricket and Antoinette, the first Croatian feature-length 3D CGI film that took 13 years to make. Cricket and Antoinette (directed by Luka Rukavina) can be seen as part of Animafest’s Family Programme on Saturday 6/10 at 11:30 a.m. at the SC Cinema.

At 1:00 p.m. in &TD, the round table on the main theme of this year’s festival – artificial intelligence, which will be discussed by Reinhold Bidner, Gerrit Kuge, Aneta Ozorek and Marko Paleka, moderated by Daniel Šuljić. Throats parched by the discussion can then relax at the screenings of Poland in Focus 4 (3:30 p.m.) at &TD, which brings together protest films of local animation from the 1960s to the present day. Curators Olga Bobrowska and Michal Bobrowski will introduce us to the programme with useful notes about this selection. At 5 p.m. is the second and last chance for the Student Film Competition 2, quite probably the best part of this competition. At 18:30, Grand Competition Short Film 2 follows, followed by the science fiction “Disasters” section (SF 3, 8 p.m.). In the CEE Talents programme from 10 p.m. (free admission), you can see the works of the most talented young authors of Central and Eastern Europe, selected by festival directors from the region. The evening ends at 10.30 p.m. at Café &TD with Bruca, Braca, Bruda, Brada, a humorous-satirical pop-horror series about four heroes from Sarajevo who represent the harsh reality of the region.

The SC Cinema opens at 11 a.m. with World Panorama 1, followed by the central screening of the fourth segment of the SF theme programme dedicated to collage films presented by curator Chris Robinson, director of the Ottawa festival, at 1 p.m. At 3.30 p.m. the speculative block SF 1 “The Future Is Here” continues. After the screening of the Student Film Competition 4 from 5:30 p.m., we will be joined by Itati Romero (Carlos Montaña), Suchana Saha (Dear Me), Sara Szymańska (Opening Night), Philippe Kastner (Dede Is Dead), Dorotea Radušić (Peacock Inn) and Honor Price (Zuman). At 8 p.m., Grand Competition Short Film 5 will be graced by Ethan and Tiffany Barrett (Rosemary AD (After Dad)) with their comments, and at 10 p.m., Inés Sedan (Love Me True), Xie Li (Fragile Love), Dimitrije Mihajlović, Miguel Lima (Almost Forgotten) and Matea Kovač (Y) will join at GC 6.

The Tuškanac cinema opens with “SF 2 The World of Tomorrow” at 5:30 p.m., after which from 7:30 p.m. we will screen the Japanese horror anime Feast of Amrita and the Chinese film No Changes Have Taken in Our Life. At the Tuškanac Summer Stage, and in case of unfavourable weather, in the Tuškanac Cinema at the same time from 9:30 p.m., there is a central screening of the feminist musical by Signe Baumane My Love Affair with Marriage.