Over 900 entries, 45 selections from 32 production countries, 10 world and two international premieres – this is the balance sheet of the Animafest 2025 Grand Competition Short Film, presenting less than 5% of the submitted entries. However, the numbers say little about the narrative and aesthetic diversity of the most prestigious festival competition, whose winners will make global animation history. Will it be authors from the traditionally strong production countries such as France, Germany, Canada, South Korea or the Czech Republic, or filmmakers from lesser-known animated film environments such as Jordan, Montenegro or Lithuania, we will find out on June 7. Until then, let us forget about the competitive nature of the programme and simply enjoy the myriad of themes, motifs and styles of the best new productions of the finest film genre.

Premiere colours

California-based Korean filmmaker Erick Oh, well known to the Zagreb audience (Oscar nominated Opera; Symphony), brings us the world premiere of the film Supper – a characteristically surrealist depiction of a cosmic, probably demiurge cyclical meal that may contain a critique of class privilege, but certainly delights with small details only noticeable upon repeated viewing, the little men who have become Oh’s trademark and visible symbolic potential. The Argentine animated novel Don’t Look at Me (dir. Sergio Falleti, Marcelo Iglesias), an adaptation of the short story of the same name, takes place, on the other hand, ‘four floors below the present’ of social changes, in the archives of an unnamed corporation where the hero finds a job and wastes time on superficial conversations with a few coworkers under the aegis of inconspicuousness. The dense narrative tissue of superimposed motifs, rendered transparently, colourfully and sketchily in the drawing and accompanied by the voice of actor F. Iglesias, at times evokes the sensibility of the Latin American boom. Dog Alone by Marta Reis Andrade, by Zagreb’s beloved Portuguese studio BAP, in shades of sepia and primary colours and in the auspices of a family village arcadia, in which sewing and dog motifs seamlessly blend, expresses girlish memories of her grandfather. Reis Andrade has so far successfully participated in the unique collective creativity of BAP as an animator, so we eagerly await her authorial debut.

The journey home is also the occasion for broader, partly figurative, and partly geometric-abstract reflections on spatiality, ‘neighbourhoodness’, claustrophobia and the endangered privacy of contemporary life in Boundaries by Seun Yee, a Korean animator and painter with a Prague degree and a penchant for traditional techniques. Collage and cel animation allow her to take an artistically and conceptually playful approach to these themes, in one of the more apparently innovative titles of this year’s Grand Competition. Returning home, but to Mexico, is also the theme of the French film As if the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up by Natalia León, in which the present is black and white, while memories are painted in vivid colours. Childhood reminiscences, prompted by details such as a cone or a bow tie, therefore encourage ‘colouring the city’ as a form of ingenious editing transition. The loss of colour, however, concerns the realisation of the dark truth about the high rate of femicide in Mexico and the many women who have ‘disintegrated’ into mere statistics. Natalia León's film is ‘only’ a Croatian premiere, but with the pedigree of the Critics’ Award at Sundance.

The world premiere comes with Urosh by Mate Uljarević, an offspring of Montenegrin cinema created in the charcoal technique driven by stop-motion. The work is dedicated to surreal fragments from the life of painter Uroš Tošković, who in the film recalls his wartime childhood and Parisian youth and faces mortality. Through the metamorphoses enabled by his choice of technique, Uljarević moves between quotes from Tošković’s aesthetics and his own understanding of the universal artistic search for eternity. The Iranian film Like Friend, Like Deer, also with its unique black-and-white aesthetic, underlines the theme of the position of local environmental activists targeted by a regime that sentences them to long-term prison sentences. The shadowy scenes in which the characters flicker and the stingy landscape are masterfully framed to suit the story, but at the same time leave the impression of colourless impressionistic oil paintings on canvas. Still Moving by Canadian-Chinese animator Rui Ting Ji is another tense journey – of a mother and daughter through a metaphorical storm of emotions, plans and resentments. With great attention to detail, skilful mastery of leading motifs and psychology, and a particularly impressive visualisation of driving in rainy conditions, Still Movingobserves the event of separation through the lens of a complex female relationship on the road of an uncertain future. VSEMIR- The Border at the Miren Cemetery by Lea Vučko and Damir Grbanović tells the historical story of the final resting place cut off in 1947 by the new border between Italy and Yugoslavia, but above all about the people who, until 1974, were looking for a way to bypass the unnatural division. The charcoal black-and-white image is cut off by a red lines and border guards, while a poetic-philosophical voice comments on the cosmic symbolism of this local story.

Another historically inspired film is related to Slovenia. The winner of the Croatian Film Competition and the winner of the Oktavijan Award Vuk Jevremović presents his latest work Moral Support, inspired by Laibach, the song of the same name, and the communist miners’ strike in Trbovlje in the 1920s. As we have come to expect from Jevremović, this is a visually flamboyant work of various techniques in which the shot never stands still, the abstract instantly turns into the figurative, and the monochrome into the polychrome. Milan Fras’s trademark dark vocal suits the visuality of the film, also marked by superb animated editing and references to the Russian avant-garde. Three Croatian films in the 2025 Animafest Grand Competition appear before the eyes of a world audience for the first time. Established editor Maida Srabović from Koprivnica makes her debut as an author of artistic animation with the film Fačuk, inspired by the works of naive painter Mijo Kovačić, produced by her own company Tetrabot and under the artistic direction of Stipan Tadić. Kovačić’s motifs (among which the most striking is the anthological The Pit, but there are also Sodom and Gomorrah, Deluge, Dance of the Dead and other works from this, so-called black cycle of Croatian naïve art) are, however, only one of the segments of the striking appearance of the computer cut-out that moves narratively between phantasmagoria, horror and allegory, creating an impressive portrayal of the cruelty of rural life and worldview. After Animafest, Fačuk will also be screened in the Perspectives section of the Annecy festival.

The new film by animator, painter and musician Marko Meštrović, How, is a black and white, surrealist-existentialist poem about finitude and infinity, the sublime and mundane aspects of life, marked primarily by the motif of man’s desire for flight, which leads to a meditative scene of first-person air travel over desert, mountain, sea and forest landscapes. The sounds of traditional string instruments (George Howlett), Mozart’s Requiem and an off-screen narrator accompany this journey through time and space. Finally, with the black and white drawing The Shadow, Petra Balekić travels through the female body and psyche, exploring the dynamics of self-acceptance (roughness and tenderness to oneself) and redefining the animated nude at the visual intersection of Martina Scarpelli, Marta Pajek, Yoriko Mizushiri and Yumi Joung.

Speaking of international premieres, in the film by Canadian Rachel Samson, along with Out for Ice Cream, a girl’s friendship also melts under the scorching sun, while the hero of John Kelly’s humorous and wistful film, voiced by actor Domhnall Gleeson, draws up his Retirement Plan, dreaming of making up for everything he missed.

Festival laurels

From the Cannes Film Festival comes the gentle and melancholic Scars We Love by Raphaël Jouzeau, a creative visualisation of a conversation about a breakup and reminiscences of the former relationship between the quiet, nervous, sensitive and still in love Gaspard and the down-to-earth, reconciled, but no less hurt and wistful Leïla. The film’s heroes carry numerous details into their memories and the re-enactment of sentimental feelings that they still cherish and that seamlessly enter the space of the café before the eyes of random visitors. Drawing, 2D and documentary footage support this moving and thoughtful study of ‘inner beaches’ and emotional inhibitions and inconsistencies.

Acclaimed Polish animator Izabela Plucińska returns to her comedy roots in the high-production claymation film Joko, an adaptation of the work of French surrealist Roland Topor that is, however, also a multi-layered parable about accepting subservience, oppression and physical (including sexual) and psychological exploitation by family, employer and upper class (decadent hotel guests). This is how Joko also fits in with Izabela’s more recent works on topics of domestic violence, partner relationships and desire. Non-standard camera angles, muted colours, deliberate lighting and an absurdist premise simultaneously contribute to an atmosphere of grotesque psychological horror and dystopian satire (with a particularly prominent motif of violent lust), with Joko managing to include a meta-cinematic reflection on her own technique in the plot.

From the little-known Jordanian cinema (with French production support and lead animator Marta Magnuska) comes Rand Beiruty’s Shadows, a poignant and empathetic work about a 14-year-old girl, mother and wife, a victim of abuse who leaves Baghdad for the world. Through conversations with the director, she uses the magic of animation to bring to life her partly surreal story of escape from a life situation which is, unfortunately, based on real events. The film was shown at the Venice Film Festival, just like Il burattino e la balena by Animafest’s veteran Roberto Catani, one of the greatest admirers of Italian visual, especially the avant-garde tradition in contemporary animation. Using the classic drawing technique, he treats the Pinocchio motif of the artificial man with regard to the themes of creation, the joy of physical existence, conformism and dehumanisation. And with its thoughtful ‘wooden’ soundscape, Il burattino e la balena contributes to the legacy of the famous fairy tale, itself carved from the mythological, folk and theatrical tradition of the Apennines.

Filmed in northern Estonia and Norway, the Baltic time-lapse puppet film On Weary Wings Go By by Anu-Laura Tuttelberg is an animated-experimental poem about the arrival of winter and the dying of nature, with a unique atmosphere and character design. The film had its world premiere at the Locarno festival, where it was also possible to see Voiceless by Samuel Patthey, an autobiographically inspired depiction of the consciousness of a techno partygoer whose empty everyday life flows in anticipation of night clubbing before being clouded by the anxiety (or anticipation?) of fatherhood. It is a film of energetic multi-perspective and artistic virtuosity in the service of animated mediation of a trip the likes of which we have not seen since the modern classic Acid Rain. Voiceless is also a film about maturing, or rather a personality torn between intense youthful experiences and taking responsibility for a new life. Another old acquaintance of Animafest’s audience, Sasha Svirsky, in the eclectic-experimental, essayist-philosophical and sonically aggressive Dull Spots of Greenish Colours (also screened in Locarno), once again resonates with the ‘wonderful past times’ (as in his previous film The Master of the Swamps), but this time also on smartphone screens, newsfeeds and war.

With the film Hurikán, a black-and-white action comedy about a clumsy fat man in a romantic Prague night chase for a keg of beer that particularly delighted the Annecy audience, Czech author Jan Saska, known for his graduation black comedy Happy End, returns to Animafest. More than a decade after her Animafest debut in the student competition, Japanese director Saki Muramoto also makes her debut in the Grand Competition with her work A Night at the Rest Area. The film, which won awards at festivals in Varna, Paris and Los Angeles, is a nocturnal-meditative, rarely quiet story about the liminal space of a roadside rest stop that is both alienating and humane. The main award of the Brussels Anime was given to Sisowath Quay (dir. Stéphanie Lansaque, François Leroy), a romantic horror set in the capital of Cambodia with references to the history of the genre and local demonology, but also open to allegorical readings (contagion, impurity, poverty). In addition to striking lighting techniques and atmospheric music, the methods of inserting computer 2D animation into blurred, heavily filtered documentary footage, whose treatment is somewhat reminiscent of rotoscopy, and the incorporation of Khmer shadow puppetry, are also interesting. Also mildly terrifying is the Mexican 3D and stop-motion animated Dolores by Cecilia Andalón Delgadillo, a paraphrase of Alice in Wonderland in which the title character turns into an armadillo after a tea party with the dead.

Activism and humour

The theme programme of Animafest 2025 is reflected in the Grand Competition by several works with a pronounced socio-critical pedigree. Behind the apparently naïve, iconic story about storks that bring children, the Brazilian duo Yuca (Daniella Schuarts and Leonardo Salomão) in Impossible Journeyhid an allegory about racial inequality in the field of obstetrics – the film is dedicated to Puerto Rican Amber Rose Isaac, who was killed by an unprofessionally performed caesarean section during the pandemic in New York. The painful and cruel journey of the stork through fire and water, forests and mountains (metaphors of pregnancy complications) executed in acrylic paints and drawings does not end with a sweet baby, but with the added documentary scene of reading a poem about Amber. Into the cosmic garden and joyful Escherian-Moebiusian entertainment, a sexual assault brings disorder that sets off a search for justice and recovery in the visually exceptional surrealist allegory of inner life Gardening by Sarah Beeby. In character design, evoking feature-length animation from the 1980s, Gardening, through a green-yellow disco Eden, a brown-black court, a white desert and a library, and equally comforting and threatening floral motifs of the set design, visually and verbally clearly articulates a psychological struggle, a mix of feelings, and a rediscovery of love and understanding for oneself and others.

In the autobiographical frustration with life on a traffic-jammed street, Jelena Oroz finds inspiration for creative and dynamic visualisations of a ‘collision’ between a man and a car, using both her recognisable 2D aesthetic and stop-motion animation of objects and ‘children’s’ drawings. No Room, however, goes beyond registering urban discomfort, showing how four-wheeled monsters colonise our dreams and psyche. The film was honoured by ASIFA Croatia as the best domestic professional work last year. Mealitancy (dir. Zinia Scorier, Marie Royer) is a film about the freegans, an anti-consumerist community that refuses to buy food, but instead feeds on discarded food and the fruits of a communal garden that they also sell. Documentary audio recordings are illustrated and brought to life with dominant primary colours and white, and the activist resistance to the authorities who repeatedly demolish the garden is also shown. Interesting for its animated handheld camera, i.e. the mixing of various documentary techniques and new media complacency with fantastic, monstrously gigantic, burstingly referential pop-cultural transformations and a metaphor of devouring, Marten Visser’s Skroll reflects on the desensitisation of modern man to reality as a result of excessive consumption of spectacle.

Well-known animated film comedians and regular Animafest participants Job, Joris & Marieke have this time told the ecological gag-dystopia of Quota with recognisable egg-shaped 3D characters. Dutch actress Carice van Houten, known from Game of Thrones, Valkyrie, etc., also gave her voice to the film. The lavish satire with elements of the grotesque Free the Chickens by Matúš Vizár mocks animal rights activism and veganism, but also extends it to the usual ‘conflicts on the activist left’, the hippie movement, guruism, etc. All this does not mean that the film does not raise some important, primarily ethical questions – animals and politics have been in Vizár’s constant focus since the well-received Pandas (Animafest 2014).

In Angelo Defanti’s hilarious Brazilian film I Am a German Shepherd, a lofty and pretentious guard dog is thrown into an identity crisis by a provocative sheep that reminds him of his ‘wolf nature’. In the company of a vegetarian wolf, he continues to explore his place in the world. Although the design of the characters is marked by an attractive minimalism, and scenes of wolf howling and existential crisis are creatively resolved, the most attractive side of this work is certainly the elaborate, superbly acted dialogues and monologues that enable the film about animals to become a real comedy of character. A creative depiction of the course and breakdown of a love affair is at the heart of Martinus Klemet’s film Yummy, a work marked by specific Estonian humour and a grotesque premise about a dog food taster whose emotional distancing from her partner, prompted by his desire for fatherhood, has a macabre ending. Suresh Eriyat’s Indian musical 3D gag-comedy Croak Show is based on rhythmic traditional and pop-traditional singing distorted by howling and lavish animal animation, while Tobias Rud’s humorous Danish miniature Fish-Thinking projects the insecurities of a fisherman in love onto a fish. Finally, Elena Walf’s German-Croatian co-production A Pain in the Butt is a winter animal gag-comedy about a misunderstanding between a dog and a hedgehog, driven by a witty flat aesthetic and the classical music ‘hits’. This is an episode of the animated series Lenas Hof by the renowned Stuttgart studio Film Bilder, co-produced with Miljana Dragičević’s Croatian company Minya – Film & Animation.

History, experiment and tradition

The award-winning stop-motion animated film Father’s Letters by Aleksey Evstigneev tells the touching true story of an exiled meteorologist who, in the 1930s, sent letters to his daughter from the gulag about his ‘plant research expedition’, thus protecting her from the truth about his fate. The impressively coloured, mostly flat in perspective, but also slightly embossed film uses floral metaphors to convey human tragedy, making it understandable even to younger viewers. Corrie Francis Parks, known for her animation of natural materials and their combination with digital technology, in the film SKRFF with Daniel Nuderscher scratches under the layers of paint applied to a Viennese wall from 1982 to the present day. The wacky premise and the original and surprising look (stop-animation, time lapse, computer) make this experimental journey through the wall ‘plains and valleys’ an unforgettable experience. Where Blue Meets Red is a Hungarian experimental work by Tamás Patrovits made with the help of a risograph, a digital printer from the Japanese corporation Riso Kagaku, known for its fast and mostly monochrome printing. The prints of the colours from the title, however, were shot using the traditional frame-by-frame method and edited to the infectious rhythm of Barabás Lőrinc’s jazz trumpet, which creates an attractive play of lines and geometric forms. 

An abstract dance of pleasure and fragility, the ‘skiing’ film Freeridein C by Latvian author Edmunds Jansons, created in the filmmaker’s favourite blue-white-red shades and through masterfully vivid lines, will delight fans of this sport with the animation of cable cars, ski maps and little men similar to sports pictograms.

In the classic aesthetics of the black-and-white drawing of the movie The Way You Look Tonight, Christoph Horch presents a radical physical form of intolerance and aversion to slurping, loud chewing and other flaws of his partner and takes them to their limits. The white background creates, swallows and transforms the dominantly floral and facial motifs freely associated with the scents in the seemingly refreshing vintage Ode to Perfume by Maxim Litvinov. Using the traditional technique of drawing on paper, Meejin Hong in Deluge, noted also at the festival in Rotterdam, shows the saturated space of memories in constant change. Abstract at first, the film space becomes more and more filled with referential figurative transformations in the loop and rich details, while black overcomes white and takes us back to some bygone days of the media.