The 24th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb 2014, short film edition, takes place between 3 and 8 June 2014 at Europa, Tuškanac and Cineplexx Kaptol Centre theatres. Among 1725 submitted entries from 73 countries, the international selection committees consisting of André Eckardt (Germany), Abi Feijó (Portugal) and Marina Kožul (Croatia) – Grand Competition; Alexis Hunot (France), Tamaki Okamoto (Japan) and Slave Lukarov (Croatia) – Student Competition and Commissioned Film Competition, selected 144 films for this year’s Festival competitions and panoramas.

Based on the committees’ suggestions and her own expertise, other 37 films from Europe, Asia and North America were selected by media psychologist Martina Peštaj for the Children’s Competition – the central part of the Children and Youth Programme – and categorised them according to age groups (4-7, 7-10, 10-14 and 14+). Peštaj also made a selection for the Family Programme, appropriate for parents and children, which includes six films.

The Student Competition selection committee decided to present the Best Animation School Award to London’s Royal College of Art (RAC), whose animation department is currently celebrating 25 years of existence. This respectable school’s students impressed the committee members with the diversity of style, genre and narrative, which is why there will be a special RCA selection at this year’s Animafest, including as many as 29 cherry-picked films from its famous history. The second school Animafest 2014 will specially present is the Hungarian Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME). This academy stands out with particular quality of female filmmakers who create visually powerful and impressive works, often abstract in terms of theme. The Moholy-Nagy University will be presented with a total of 10 films.

The central thematic programme of Animafest 2014 consists ofa large puppet-film retrospective comprising a complete world top list of this technique as selected by 45 leading artists of today, such as the Quay Brothers, Barry Purves, Jiří Barta, Stephan Aubier and Vincent Patar; a panorama of French puppet-film, made in association with the Annecy festival; and a panorama of Croatian puppet film with an accompanying exhibition.

The Masters of Animation category is also tailored-made this year to suit the taste of true film lovers. The author of the best animated film of all times, Tale of Tales, and the winner of Animafest’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2014 Yuri Norstein, is also subject of a retrospective. Another is dedicated to Norman McLaren, the great innovator of animated and experimental film whose 100th birthday we celebrate with preserved copies of his works, made available thanks to the collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada.

Six films nominated for Cartoon d’Or, the European award for best short animated film, can be seen in one of Animafest’s special programmes. The selected finalists made a name for themselves at prestigious festivals, which is a condition to qualify for a Cartoon d’Or nomination, presented by the European animated film association CARTOON, supported by the MEDIA programme.