Rise & Shine

08-10/06 MON-WED 10:00 - 19:00 Studio-galerija KLET In English, for participants only.

Rise & Shine

Rise & Shine is a project development and pitching lab for first and second-time professional filmmakers and their short films (up to 20 minutes) divided into three parts and organized by Animafest Zagreb and Animateka IAFF in collaboration with CEE Animation in three modules: focus on script, project follow-up, focus on pitch.

 

PROJECTS

 

MENTORS

CHRIS LAVIS is an Academy Award winning animator and director. His first film, with longtime collaborator Maciek Szczerbowski, Madame Tutli-Putli (2007), was recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. Lavis and Szczerbowski went on to adapt Maurice Sendak’s Higgelty-Piggelty Pop! produced by Spike Jonze and starring Meryl Streep. In 2016, the duo were recognized with a nomination for Best Art Direction at the Canadian Screen Awards for their work on Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room. And in 2017, retrospectives at the Cinémathèque Québécoise and the Annecy International Animation Festival celebrated twenty years of their artistic creations. In 2019 they created Gymnasia, an innovative blend of virtual reality and stop-motion animation, which premiered at the Tribeca Film festival, and won them a Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience. Lavis and Szczerbowski’s latest film, The Girl Who Cried Pearls, was chosen as the opening film at the Annecy International Animation Festival, won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and garnered the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 2026 Academy Awards.

PEDRO RIVERO (Bilbao, 1969) is a screenwriter, director and producer of animated films. He has won two Goya Awards for the short film Birdboy (2012) and the feature film Psiconautas los niños olvidados (Birdboy, the Forgotten Children, 2017), and is author of the first Spanish Flash animation film released in commercial theatres, La crisis carnívora (Animal Crisis, 2008). He was co-screenwriter of the live action feature film The Platform (2019), directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, which was awarded at the Sitges and Toronto festivals and is one of the most watched films in the history of the Netflix platform. He is artistic director of the Bilbao International Animation Community Festival - Animakom Fest, and has participated as a jury member and lecturer at numerous animation film festivals. He was president of the Professional Association of Scriptwriters of the Basque Country between 2002 and 2008 and a member of the Board of Directors since its foundation in 1997. Rivero is author of comics and theatrical texts, he has taught scriptwriting for film at several centres and academies for more than twenty years.

ANNA VÁŠOVÁ started as a script executive for the Czech TV. She also lectured at the Academy of Performing Arts and wrote scripts for the theatre/TV/radio. Later she headed the production arm of Barrandov Studios and became the Director of Programmes at Czech TV. From there, she moved for 15 years to Eurovision in Geneva, where she coordinated over 50 co-productions across 86 TVs in 56 countries. After her return to Prague in 2015, Anna became a member of the Czech TV Director’s Advisory board, led two sectors at the Visegrad Animation Forum and served as member of the FAMU Artistic Board. She also returned to independent scriptwriting, script-advising and tutoring. In 2018 Anna set up an animation production company 13ka (13ka.eu) together with a fresh producer Karolina Davidova. Since then, Anna works there as a producer, scriptwriter and script editor. Her latest published work is The Websters Movie (2022, dir. Katarina Kerekesova), where Anna acted as a writer and producer. She occasionally lectures at FAMU, works as an expert for MEDIA programme, and participates at festivals and workshops as a tutor or a jury member.