The Kranjčar Gallery hosted a press conference for the 35th World Animated Film Festival – Animafest Zagreb 2025, which will take place from June 2 to 7 at the SC Cinema, the Kinoteka Cinema, the Museum of Contemporary Art and other venues across the city. The film programme consists of almost 350 titles, as many as the announced foreign guests, and in addition to prestigious competitions of short, feature, student and Croatian films, there is also a large theme segment dedicated to “The World on the Edge”, retrospectives of Michaela Pavlátova (exhibition, masterclass, films) and Veljko Popović, South Korean and new Japanese animation, Animafest PRO with the 12th Animafest Scanner symposium and the Rise & Shine workshop, an exhibition programme and a Programme for Children and Youth.

The jury members and programme details were introduced by the festival’s artistic director Daniel Šuljić, producers Matea Milić and Paola Orlić, and the deputy head of the City Office for Culture and Civil Society Nikolina Radić Štivić, while the authors of the Croatian contributions to the Grand Competition Short Film, Maida Srabović (Fačuk), Jelena Oroz (No Room) and Marko Meštrović (How), spoke about their works. The festival trailer by author Varya Yakovleva and musician Alexey Prosvirnin were presented. Yakovleva is also the author of the festival illustrations, incorporated into the overall visual identity of the festival by the Kuna zlatica design studio.

Daniel Šuljić greeted the audience on behalf of one of the three most important animated film festivals in the world, a prestigious event of Croatian culture, but also of global film art. With particular pleasure, Šuljić pointed out that a record-breaking 2024 films from 92 countries around the world have been submitted for Animafest 2025, and that 10 works will have their world premieres in the Grand Competition Short Film alone, and two will be international. The total number of world premieres is 47, and 13 international. The big news is that Animafest has become a qualifying festival for the BAFTA award in addition to the Oscars, and not only the winner of the Grand Competition Short Film qualifies for the Oscars, but also the winner of the Croatian Film Competition. Šuljić spoke highly of the Croatian production, which, in addition to the aforementioned films, is represented in Grand Competition by Vuk Jevremović (Moral Support), Petra Balekić (The Shadow) and Elena Walf (A Pain in the Butt), and in Student Film Competition by Jelena Milunović (Floating), Petra Pavetić Kranjčec (From Peter to Aida), Marta Margetić (Spine) and Andrea Miletić (Beast). Croatian cinema in the Croatian Film Competition includes a total of 24 works with new productions by Zagreb Film, ALU, Adriatic Animation, Bonobostudio and other independent producers, such as Psychonauts by Niko Radas, which will travel to Annecy after Zagreb, new films by Thomas and Ivana Volda or Istrian Piova by Danilo Dučak with music by Livio Morosin. Being selected for Animafest’s international competitions actually means an international success of our film, which we sometimes forget because it is a Croatian festival, but the competition is global and very strong, with less than 5% selected. Croatian animation is very good and has been slowly growing for years. This year we had a record-breaking 54 Croatian entries for the Croatian Film Competition, so even being selected is not easy – said Šuljić. Thanks to Animafest’s sponsor Telemach, viewers will also be able to ascertain the quality of part of this year’s festival programme on the EON TV platform.

As the selection process indicated a strong trend of socially critical filmmaking, Šuljić decided to dedicate the central theme program of Animafest 2025, entitled “The World Is on the Edge”, to films about major social movements and oppression, or rather some of the burning issues of today’s global society: migration and refugees, wars, the terror of state authorities, and protests and activism. Art is not just there to relax, but to question and point out unpleasant things, like a pebble in your shoe. The topic is not the easiest, but it is our obligation to show such excellent films, too – said Šuljić. Pablo Ballarín, Marta Magnuska, Fabio Friedli, Paul Wenninger, Anja Kofmel, Joško Marušić, Lotfi Achour, Felix Weisz and Erick Oh are some of the authors in the theme program, in which valuable works were also created by artistic collectives.

Šuljić said that the jury of the Grand Competition Short Film will include French animator Osman Cerfon, Slovenian animator Špela Čadež, Chilean director and founder of the Chilemonos festival Erwin Gomez, Japanese animator Sarina Nihei and Croatian stop-motion animation master Ivana Volda. The jury members are mostly multiple participants in the most prestigious Animafest competition from previous years, and Cerfon and Nihei will also give masterclasses. Sarina Nihei’s films will be screened, however, in a special section of the new wave of Japanese short animation that Nihei will present with her colleague Ryo Orikasa.

In the unified jury of the, as Šuljić put it, “free and playful”, Student Film Competition (40 films, three of which come from the winners of the Best Animation School Award – Babelsberg Film University Konrad Wolf for which a separate retrospective is being hosted) and the Croatian Film Competition, decisions on the awards will be made by the Polish professor of film  Michał Bobrowski, co-founder of the Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Vienna festival Waltraud Grausgruber and Korean animator Jin Woo. Grausgruber also curates a special film event under the title Moms on Fire and Other Acts of Liberation associated with her festival, which opens up space for female and gender non-conforming perspectives – images that irritate, challenge and transform, question social conventions and explore alternative ways of seeing, and which focus on bodies, relationships and biographies in flux. We will watch one film by Jin Woo as part of a retrospective of South Korea – the country in focus of Animafest 2025. The three-part section explores independent animations that emerged from a broader urban discourse: Concrete Dreams, Bound by Blood (the family as traditionally the most important Korean community, now in decline) and identity questions such as Who Am I. As we witness the creative power of South Korean cinema year after year at Animafest, it is the right time to look back on its past three decades – said Paola Orlić.

Grand Competition Feature Film, presented by Matea Milić, includes six works dominated by screen adaptations, topics of memory and coming-of-age, and stop-motion animation: Memoir of a Snail, a Claymation film by Oscar-winner Adam Elliot, well-known to the Zagreb audience, the famous Quay brothers’ new film Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass based on Bruno Schulz’s work, Flow by Gints Zilbalodis (Oscar winner whose career Animafest has followed from the very beginning), Living Large for young audiences, by Czech Kristina Dufkova which took 13 years to make, the world premiere of Shunsaku Hayashi’s first feature film Invisions and the moving story from Sardinia Balentes by Giovanni Columbu. The jury will include Croatian producer Miljana Dragičević, Spanish animation curator and artistic director of the leading Spanish animation festival Carolina López Caballero, and Czech producer, lecturer and mentor Martin Vandas. In addition to giving a masterclass, Vandas will also participate in a roundtable discussion on the involvement of professional productions in the making of student films.

The central retrospective programme Masters of Animation is dedicated to Czech artist Michaela Pavlátová – the winner of the Animafest 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. We will see 11 of her films from the 1987-2022 period, including the classics Words, Words, Words, Repete and Tram, and the winner will also give a masterclass. Pavlátová is also the protagonist of the rich exhibition event of Animafest 2025, which was presented by Paola Orlić. The exhibition entitled Slušaš li me / Are You Listening to Me in the Kranjčar Gallery is defined as a spatio-temporal installation in which the author’s poetics is presented through looped video works and drawing fragments of her creative process instead of in a classic film narration. It is a rare exhibition step by this author that expands her work from film screens to the gallery space, erasing the boundary between animation and contemporary art. The seventh group exhibition Behind the Scenes follows – 27 authors of the Grand Competition Short Film in the Gallery on the first floor of KIC and 19 authors of the Student Film Competition in the new Klet Gallery. Three authors from the Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University, Pearl Seemann, Jelena Milunović and Ariel Victor Arthanto, will present themselves in Gallery Šira. Stipan Tadić’s solo exhibition Fačuk at the Kaptol Gallery consists of works that Maida Srabović’s film of the same name was based on, and they refer to the bard of our naïve art Mijo Kovačić, especially Sodom and Gomorrah. The exhibition is joined, exclusively for Animafest, by the Mijo Kovačić Gallery and Foundation, where Sodom and Gomorrah will be on display, as well as other works by Kovačić. These two exhibitions put masters of different generations in an artistic dialogue. On May 29, the Chinese Animation Museum in Hangzhou will also open a large retrospective exhibition Half a Century of Animafest, curated by Margit Antauer, Vesna Meštrić and Paola Orlić.

The Zagreb spirit of the festival will once again be contributed by Animafest’s favorite open air. The first will be held at Zrinjevac on May 30 at 9:30 PM with the programme Pekar Boris i prijatelji (Baker Boris and Friends), named after the great film for ages 3+ by Maša Avramović. After that, from 10 pm, we will call to memory the best films of last year’s Animafest. The second open-air is scheduled for May 31 at 9:30 pm in Maksimir Park, where Animafest celebrates the Zoo’s 100th birthday with a screening of the Oscar-winning Flow. Partners of the already traditional Animafest in Your Neighbourhood event this year are the cultural centres Maksimir, KNAP, NS Dubrava, NS Sesvete, the Centre for Art Education of the City of Zagreb, and as part of the Zagreb Neighbourhoods of Culture project, Animafest is coming to Novi Jelkovec (block A). The neighbourhoods will screen Baker Boris and Friends and the Children and Youth Films Competition. In KNAP and Novi Jelkovec, these screenings will also be enjoyed outdoors. In addition to cooperating with the city’s culture centres, from this year we are also doing the same with the INmusic festival, for which we will screen three film selections in their new program Silent Cinema. Thanks to the Ribnjak Youth Centre, we also have a wonderful space for our traditional festival picnic – added Matea Milić.

Animafest is truly rooted in the history of Zagreb as an important element of its identity. Over the decades, it has grown and developed, becoming stronger and more present. Given the Zagreb School of Animation, it is natural that this is so. For international visibility, it is extremely important that this festival has Zagreb in its name, which speaks volumes about the mutual love between the city and Animafest. But in addition to the international animation scene, Animafest means a lot to our community, which reaches out to many parts of the city, and to citizens from the youngest to the oldest – said Nikolina Radić Štivić.

Animafest 2025 is also hosting an author’s retrospective, with nine works from the 2008-2024 period, for Veljko Popović, whose work represents the emergence of domestic 2D and 3D animation from a pioneering period to one of full maturity and creative freedom. An overview of 50 years of the history of the School of Animated Film (ŠAF) Čakovec, meanwhile, contains 17 films from the 1981-2025 period, selected by the current School director, Jasminka Bijelić Ljubić. Given their provenance, this selection is part of the Children and Youth Programme, which also includes 34 films from the Films for Children and Youth Competition, divided into four age categories (3-6, 7-10, 11-14 and 15+) and selected by media psychologist Martina Peštaj and film critic Nin Kovačić. The works in this competition are characterised by stories about animals, friendship, discovering oneself and one’s own strengths, different identities and life experiences. In today’s digital world, this competition offers content that children do not seek or find on their own, which is why it is important to offer it to them in the cinema. As part of the Family Programme, in addition to the screening of the selection Baker Boris and Friends, a drawing and discussion workshop of the same name is being organized at MSU on 7 June, while the film Tales from the Magic Garden (ages 6+) on 6 and 7 June at MSU and Kinoteka follows children who come up with their own stories and thus continue the tradition of their grandmothers. The films of the Grand Competition Feature Film Flow (8+) and Living Large (10+) are also suitable for children.

Time for the Masters also features new works in 2025 by big names associated with Animafest for years. This time, they are Lei Lei, Yumi Joung, Izibene Oñederra, Thomas Renoldner, Priit and Olga Pärn, Rao Heidmets and Vera Neubauer. The ASIFA Student Award will be presented again, the candidates of which we will be able to see at a special screening, including the Croatian candidate Eugen Bilankov (Windows from the South). Sayoko Kinoshita will be awarded the ASIFA Prize, an annual award for lifetime achievement, and the 65 years of the umbrella international animation association will also be marked with a selection of classics from the 1949-2000 period, with authors such as Norman McLaren, Raoul Servais, Caroline Leaf, Jerzy Kucia, Paul Driessen, Joanna Quinn and Borivoj Dovniković.

The Animafest 2025 industry programme is led by the 12th Animafest Scanner Symposium (KIC, June 3 and 4), which will be opened by the winner of the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies, Georges Sifianos. The author of the seminal Animation Aesthetics and professor emeritus of ÉNSAD in Paris will give a lecture under the title Animation and Ecology. From Phidias to Norman McLaren. The symposium will discuss animation in the context of film’s ephemerality, contemporary technological developments in animation, line as a constitutive element of animated film, and violence in animated film. The symposium is open to all interested public. The fourth edition of the Rise & Shine event, organised by Animafest with Ljubljana’s Animateka and in collaboration with CEE Animation, will feature 11 projects selected from more than 60 submitted entries. Mentors will be Jelena Popović, NFB producer, multiple Goya Award winner Pedro Rivero, and Anna Vášová, screenwriter and producer with extensive international experience. The AFN Edu programme, on the other hand, is intended for animation students, enabling mobility and international cooperation. It is organised by the Animation Festival Network, a network of five of the most important animation festivals in Central and Eastern Europe. A lecture on the topic of activism and support for the animation community in crisis hotspots will be given by Olga Bobrowska. Animated projects in development will also be presented, the feature-length Besmrtnik by Renata Grgić and Kristijan Petrović, as well as the short film Meta by Veljko and Milivoj Popović and Bože Balov. Finally, new publications dedicated to animated films will be presented. We try to structure Animafest PRO ‘generationally’. First of all, we focus on younger, future professionals, that is, students through AFN Edu. These events are growing strongly – from the initial idea of ​​10-15 people, we have reached almost 150 students from about 15 schools around the world. We want to be a springboard for young people to enter the beautiful world of animation and its professional community. As a large but exceptionally friendly festival where young people meet legends, we are in an ideal position for this. Then, as authors of their first and second professional films, we welcome them to the Rise&Shine workshop – said Milić.

Milić also pointed out that Animafest has always been an inclusive festival in the broadest sense of the word, but that this year, in cooperation with the Filmaktiv Association (its initiative “Film to Everybody”), it is taking a step further by organising a workshop and screening inclusive films. Maja Ogrizović’s workshop “Film to Everybody Everywhere – Inclusive Potential of Film” on 6 June at KIC consists of a screening of an inclusive film accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as the blind and visually impaired, a discussion about film and inclusion, and learning the basics of Croatian sign language. On June 4th, the screening of the film Living Large at Kinoteka will be accompanied by audio description, AD subtitles and live Croatian sign language, and the screening of the film Flow on June 7th at Kinoteka will be accompanied by audio description and AD subtitles. Both inclusive screenings are free for all visitors. Animafest, in cooperation with the Children Meet Art Association, will once again be in Zagreb hospitals.

Some of the Animafest programme will also be available outside of Zagreb. Ahead of the festival, Animafest visited the Edison Cinema in Karlovac, followed by Split (as part of the FMFS and MKC) and Rijeka (Art-kino Croatia and the Tobogan Children’s Festival).

Fačuk is a derogatory term for an illegitimate child. From such words and the ‘trauma’ of being surrounded by naïve painting during my Podravina youth, with all those tormented villages and skinned roosters, the idea of ​​a horror film inspired by the dark current of Podravina naivety grew. Mijo Kovačić is known for his phantasmagorical and dark scenes that fit perfectly into this idea. The film was in the making for seven years and it was great to work with Stipan Tadić, with whom the collaboration worked even ‘across the Atlantic’ – said Maida Srabović about her film Fačuk.

My film is a revenge on cars that park on sidewalks and deny pedestrians the opportunity to walk, which I became especially aware of when my son was a baby and I had to plan every walk or trip to the store with a stroller. I had visions of myself scratching cars with my fingernails. Fortunately, everything you wouldn’t do in real life can be achieved in animation. Vanja Andrijević put me in touch with the screenwriter Jasna Jasna Žmak, who solved the problem of the film’s structure with a monologue. The drawing came intuitively out of me, but for the first time I also used stop-motion animation, which was not difficult with a house full of toys and blocks – said Jelena Oroz about No Room.

With the help of animation tools, I expanded time, the cycles of creation and destruction in a global and individual sense. Destruction is part of the process and we can accept it as part of the civilisational framework. The sound base was the tone D and the drone of the tanpura, a classical Indian instrument, but also Mozart performed by the Berlin Philharmonic – so all in all, a serious task that was brilliantly done by Hrvoje Nikšić. The music perfectly combined with the abstraction of the drawing into an audiovisual game – said Marko Meštrović about the work How.

Tickets can be purchased via the Kupiulaznicu.hr system and at www.animafest.hr, and during the festival at the cinema box offices. Regular tickets for all programs cost 4 euros, and those for the grand short and feature film competitions cost 5 euros. A festival card, which costs 40 euros and includes admission to all screenings (except the grand opening), is also available at kupiulaznicu.hr.

The Student Film Competition, the Children and Youth Film Competition, all segments of the Masters of Animation programme (From the Master’s Workshops and films by Pavlatova and Popović), special film events (the Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University retrospective and the ASIFA Student Award selection), and the entire Animafest program in your neighbourhood in city culture centres can be seen without an entrance fee.