After a magnificent open air screening at Zrinjevac on Friday, which literally calls for a rerun, on Saturday there was much talk at Animafest Zagreb. Two lectures took place, Q&A’s with filmmakers and two book promotions. Jury member and Oscar winner Chris Landreth, together with Karan Singh, spoke about the art of facial animation. At the French Institute Mediatheque a conversation took place with feature film authors Alessandro Rak, Dalibor Barić and Tomislav Babić, and there was a lecture by Swiss game designer Mario von Rickenbach.

Out of many screenings during the day, the one to single out is Disney’s 1951 classic Alice in Wonderland and films made at Čakovec School of Animation. Next to competitions, there was a section of films that won the Cartoon d’Or award for best European short animated film. The evening closed with a concert by the French musical-graphic digital pop duo Gangpol & Mit, performing at Animafest in association with Rendez-vous, festival of France in Croatia.

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The winners of the 25th Animafest will be made public on Sunday: at 6pm at the official ceremony, Europa cinema, we will find out which short and feature films were chosen by the jury as winners. Next to the award-winning titles, the Sunday programme will provide a closing look at the festival theme, with a specially attractive section – 3x3 – and two Ocelot’s films.

A selection from the abundant programme of the 25th World Festival of Animated Film soon starts touring the independent cinema network across Croatia. Today, 13 June, it arrives to Zelina – Public Open University Sveti Ivan Zelina screens The Boy and the World and Rocks in My Pockets. On Sunday, the same films will be screened in Varaždin, on 16 and 17 June in Split and Zlatna vrata Cinema, and they are also travelling to Zabok and Sinj.