ANIMAFEST PRO | ANIMAFEST SCANNER XII | PANEL 1: EXPLORING ANIMATION IN EPHEMERAL FILMS

Animafest Scanner XII: Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies

03-04/06 TUE-WED 10:00-16:30 KIC
IN ENGLISH, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

The 12th edition of the Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies Animafest Scanner XII aims again to create synergy of theoretical and practical discourses, and stimulate exchange between filmmakers and scholars. As the worldwide animation studies have been rapidly growing and evolving in recent years, catching up with the expanding field of animated films, Animafest Scanner symposium is again at the frontline of the discourse and the interaction of theoretical and practical approaches to animation. The symposium takes place during and is part of the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb. Over the course of its fifty-three-years history, the festival has given a stage to different animation forms and formats in competition and non-competition environments, presenting a worldwide selection of auteur, experimental and mainstream animated films in various programs. This year the speakers will focus on the following subjects: Exploring Animation in Ephemeral Films, Current Technological Developments in Animation, Achievements of the Line, Violence in Animated Film.

Georges Sifianos is this year’s keynote speaker and the recipient of the Animafest Zagreb Award for Outstanding Contributions to Animation Studies for 2025.
A professor emeritus at ENSAD Paris (L’École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs), where he established the Department of Animation Studies in 1995, he has shared his knowledge with students from several other schools and universities in France, India, China, Japan and Greece. He has worked on many research projects as a member of groups such as ENSADLab and PSL SACRe (PhD academic programmes focusing on research through practice), and has contributed with his texts to many animation-related books and publications. His Esthétique du cinéma d’animation won the 2014 McLaren-Lambart Award for best academic book. Lately he has been exploring Symphony of the Parthenon Frieze: using animation and music scale tones he is analysing Phidias’s mastery in the anticipation of movement and subsequent philosophical implications. All of his projects, from mentoring students to artistically mature and exceptionally creative animation, to unique research efforts focusing on the aesthetics of animation, perception and mental images, are part of this synthesis. Lately he has also been testing new technologies, with an accent on AI. Georges Sifianos is an author, teacher and scholar whose work unites the complexity and idiosyncrasy of ‘the eighth art’. An animator decorated with multiple honours and awards, he gave the organisers of Animafest Zagreb a barbed wire hat for martyrs which he made in 1996 with his students at ENSAD. This gift is still passed on ‘from head to head’ and is the cherry on the cake of his versatility, creativity and love of animation art.

ORGANISERS:
WORLD FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILM – ANIMAFEST ZAGREB
HULAHOP FILM & ART PRODUCTION
ASIFA AUSTRIA

ORGANISING COMMITTEE:
DANIEL ŠULJIĆ, MA, WORLD FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILM - ANIMAFEST ZAGREB
FRANZISKA PROKSA, PHD ST. PÖLTEN UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES / AG ANIMATION VIENNA
NIKICA GILIĆ, PHD, PROF., FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB
PROF. HOLGER LANG, WEBSTER UNIVERSITY
PROF. HRVOJE TURKOVIĆ, PHD, PROF. (RETIRED), ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB
ANDRIJANA RUŽIĆ, INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITÀ STATALE DI MILANO

WITH SUPPORT OF:
CROATIAN AUDIOVISUAL CENTRE
ZAGREB TOURIST BOARD
CITY OF ZAGREB
CROATIAN FILM AUTHORS’ AND PRODUCERS’ ASSOCIATION
AG ANIMATION / SOCIETY FOR MEDIA STUDIES
ST. PÖLTEN UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

SCHEDULE

03/06 TUESDAY

09:30 Welcome & Introduction
10:00 – 10:45 Keynote: Animation and Ecology. From Phidias to Norman McLaren, Georges Sifianos (Animafest Zagreb 2025 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies)

PANEL 1: EXPLORING ANIMATION IN EPHEMERAL FILMS
Moderator: Nikica Gilić
10:50 – 11:20 Animation in Title Sequences of Austrian Broadcasting Productions from 1960 to 1989, Kristina Schmiedl (Austria)
11:35 – 12:05 Using AI for Animation Historiography: A Speculative Visual Index,Aurélie Petit (Canada)
12:10 – 12:40 From Animating Puppets to the Essence of the Line - Two Milestones in Osvaldo Cavandoli’s Career in Animation Advertising, Andrijana Ružić (Italy)

PANEL 2: CURRENT TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN ANIMATION
Moderator: Franziska Proksa
14:00 – 14:30 Human Creativity Powered by Generative Artificial Intelligence (or Thought Without Gesture), François Giard (Canada)
14:35 – 15:05 Abstract and Experimental Animation with Generative AI, Max Hattler (Hong Kong)
15:20 – 15:50 Research on the Creation of Vertical Shot Animation, Jiu Zi, Tongle Sun (China)
15:55 – 16:25 The Representation of Water in Latvian Animated Films: Technological and Aesthetic Aspects,Edmunds Jansons (Latvia)

04/06 WEDNESDAY

09:45 Welcome & Introduction
PANEL 3: ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE LINE
Moderator: Andrijana Ružić
10:00 – 10:30 The Line in the Sand, Corrie Francis Parks (USA)
10:35 – 11:05 Lines Ahead! Sequential Image Making Practice in Drawn Animated Author’s Films,Aline Helmcke (Germany)
11:20 – 11:50 All in Line, Paola Bristot (Italy)
11:55 – 12:25 Violence as Discourse in Alberto Vázquez’s Animated Cinema, Adriana Navarro-Álvarez (Spain)

PANEL 4: VIOLENCE IN ANIMATED FILM
Moderator: Holger Lang
14:00 – 14:30 Queer Bashing: From Violence to Reclamation, Esther Bley (USA)
14:35 – 15:05 Animated Testimonies: Documentary Animation as a Tool for Addressing Violence Against Women, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre (Canada)
15:20 – 15 50 Violent Women – From Symbolic to Physical Violence: The Evolution of Female Brutality in Popular Animation, Mina Sablić Papajić (Serbia)
15:55 – 16:25 I Raise My Voice: Representation of Institutionalized Violence in Ibero-American Animation, Carolina López Caballero (Spain)