On Thursday, the 25th edition and the rich programme of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb were presented at Europa Cinema. In 2015, the Festival for the first time merges its short and feature edition. The films scheduled for 9-14 June at cinemas Europa, Tuškanac and Cineplexx Centre Kaptol were announced by Animafest’s artistic director Daniel Šuljić, producer Vjera Matković, and selection committee members Petra Zlonoga and Ivana Bošnjak.

This year’s competitions include 177 films categorized, according to the new festival structure, in one feature animation competition and five short animation competitions: short, student, commissioned and children’s competitions, and the new Croatian film section. The programmers were Daniel Šuljić for feature, short, students and Croatian competition, Nikica Gilić and Petra Zlonoga for short and Croatian competition, Ivana Bošnjak and Marko Meštrović for student competition, Lado Skorin for commissioned film competition, and Martina Peštaj for children’s film competition.

Daniel Šuljić and Petra Zlonoga presented the short competition which is still the central festival section. It includes the latest work from significant masters of the trade but also from young, fresh, talented authors.

Eight titles from the feature competition, continue Animafest’s tradition of following and supporting independent creative films ‘with brains’. Most of their makers are long-time friends of the local audience, some of them are Croatian animators, some are Oscar nominees…  

Ivana Bošnjak, a student selection committee member, presented a section that, among 43 selected films, hides many whose maturity and quality compete with the finest in the ‘race’ for Animafest’s Grand Prix. She added that, at the discretion of the student selection committee, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design won the award for best animation school. Petra Zlonoga presented a new competition category, Croatian film competition, introduced to highlight Croatian films before the Festival’s foreign guests and to stress its importance by awarding them. The commissioned film competition and the children’s film competition were also presented.

Vjera Matković revealed some other details: as we already announced, Lifetime Achievement Award 2015 went to Michel Ocelot and it will be given to him at the Festival’s opening ceremony (his films will be shown in Masters of animation programme, supported by Rendez-vous, festival of France in Croatia) and this year’s theme programme is Alice in Wonderland. Next to film programmes, there is also the second edition of the International Symposium on animated film, Animafest Scanner. There are also programmes where animation is presented outside cinemas: in museum and galleries, in the world of video games and in public space.

The festival partners are the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and Zagreb City Office for Education, Culture and Sport. The student programme sponsor is Urbanka Erste Bank.

Check the photos from the press conference in Photo Gallery