The 16th edition of Fest Anča International Animation Festival will take place during the first summer holiday weekend, from June 29 to July 2 in the riverside city of Žilina, Slovakia. The theme of this year’s festival is “Utopias,” and visitors can look forward to a rich selection of Slovak and foreign animated films and a diverse accompanying program.
Highlights include screenings of award-winning director Marta Pajek’s Impossible Figures trilogy as well as René Laloux’s cult sci-fi feature Fantastic Planet.
Families with children will also find something they like, as Fest Anča has prepared a generous lineup of events for them. The festival will also host the second edition of the unique Student Forum, which creates space for discussion between schools and animation students.
“The world we live in today is not perfect — it is full of fear and hatred, and that it’s so far from the ideal affects us deeply,” says Jakub Spevák, the program director and focus curator. “That’s why we’re focusing on utopias at this year’s Fest Anča. It is important in today’s polarized world to allow ourselves to dream of new, often unattainable worlds.”
Fest Anča in Focus
The festival’s theme is interwoven throughout the film and non-film program. A curated collection of animated shorts will look at utopias from the perspective of the climate crisis and capitalism, as well as from the perspective of the queer experience and gender equality. The audience will have the opportunity to watch a duel between dystopia and utopia, as well as an attempt to deconstruct them.
The six screenings, with titles such as The Garden of Earthly Delights, Still Waiting for Godot, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Imagining the Impossible will be complemented by discussions with personalities related to the presented themes. Guests will include activist Roman Samotný, visual and conceptual artist Jozef Pilát and dancer Monika Prikkelová.
The Masterclass will be given by Polish animator Marta Pajek, who will also present her recently completed trilogy Impossible Figures and Other Stories. The highly acclaimed three-part work is a complex, layered portrait of a woman in the context of society, family and a romantic relationship, and its focus fits right in with the theme of this year’s festival.
“Even though ‘utopia’ literally means ‘no place,’ we hope to create a real sanctuary where everyone feels safe and welcome. A place that is fairer and more inclusive. A place to call home,” adds Spevák.
This year’s festival visual, once again created by graphic designer Marek Menke, also follows the theme.
Past Utopias
Utopias also mean a certain look back at the past. On its 60th anniversary, the Slovak Film Institute has prepared a series of films called Archaeology of the Future, which explores and largely foreshadows our society’s development. Similarly, the Animation Studio at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, so as part of the program of the 16th Fest Anča, attendees can look forward to student films that have shaped the school into what it is today.
This year’s program will feature a selection of films from the Poland’s Studio Filmów Rysunkowych, which is famous for its films for children (such as Bolek and Lolek or Reksio) and its original films for adults. The section will also focus on utopias and feature diverse films, such as one about a rocket that can’t fly away or another about a shell that transports you to an idyllic past.
Feature Films
The selection of feature films is also curated in the spirit of depicting utopian worlds. Audiences can look forward to two animated science fiction classics: Chronopolis (Piotr Kamler, 1982) is set in a futuristic city inhabited by powerful immortals who are bored with the idea of eternity, and so they start playing with time. Visitors will be able to enjoy this film with a unique musical accompaniment. The Czechoslovakian co-production Fantastic Planet (René Laloux, 1973) is a story of the distant world of Ygam, inhabited by all-powerful masters and their slaves. The film celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. Both films can be screened thanks to the French Institute in Slovakia.
This year’s selection of feature films also includes the Hungarian-Slovak co-production White Plastic Sky, which was recently screened at the Berlinale Film Festival and tells the story of a dystopian future. Audiences can also look forward to Dozens of Norths, which finds light even in the darkest places. The film is a personal exploration from director Koji Yamamura, who was honored as a special guest at Festa Anča 2018. Also worth mentioning is Away by Latvian artist Gints Zilbalodis, which can be considered an adventure story for children aged 10 and up, but also an existential drama that will be more appreciated by an adult audience.
Children and their parents are in for a treat with the Slovak feature film The Websters Movie, directed by Katarina Kerekesova, as well as Yuku and the Flower of the Himalayas, about a little mouse named Yuku who embarks on an adventurous journey in search of a flower capable of bringing eternal light. The day before the festival (Wednesday, June 28), there will also be a screening of Oink, a stop-motion family film about a nine-year-old girl named Babs who receives a little pig as a present from her grandfather.
Official Selection & Juries
Almost 1,400 films were submitted to the 16th Fest Anča International Animation Festival, from which the pre-selection committee selected 230 to screen in competition. “We are delighted that they will be evaluated directly at the festival by jurors who are among the leading personalities of contemporary domestic and international animation,” says festival director Ivana Sujová.
The Best Animated Short Film and Best Student Animated Short Film will be selected by Malte Stein, an independent animation filmmaker based in Berlin, who won the main prize at last year’s Fest Anča with his film Thing. He will be accompanied by the Taiwanese director Cheng-hsu Chung, also based in Berlin, whose film An Eternal Vacation of Happiness will be featured in one of this year’s Utopias blocks. The trio of jurors will be completed by director, artist, and animator Joanna Kozuch, who co-created the last year’s visual for Fest Anča. Chung, also based in Berlin, whose film An Eternal Vacation of Happiness will be featured in one of this year’s Utopias blocks. The trio of jurors will be completed by director, artist and animator Joanna Kozuch, who co-created the last year’s visual for Fest Anča.
The Mayor’s Anča Award for the Best Slovak Animated Short Film worth €1,000 will be decided by: the director, musician and artistic director of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb Daniel Šuljić; Czech-Vietnamese director, artist and graduate of FAMU in Prague Diana Cam Van Nguyen; and expert in the field of animation studies, film studies and cultural theory Olga Bobrowska.
The Best Animated Music Video will be selected by a trio consisting of Luce Grosjean, a distributor of animated films successful at festivals around the world; Marek Menke, a graphic designer and DJ, in charge of the visual identity of Fest Anča since 2020; and the aforementioned Marta Pajek.
Accompanying Program
In addition to the animated films on offer, visitors can enjoy an accompanying program of concerts, DJ sets and discussions, which will also resonate with the Utopia theme. Concerts and parties will take place just like in previous years on the premises of the Žilina-Záriečie Station and the New Synagogue. The festival will include an Industry section conference for local animation professionals at the Rosenfeld Palace.
Musical performances will feature San Farafina, a Montreal-based Haitian-Canadian DJ, producer and member of the Moonshine crew; Vanyfox, a 22-year-old DJ and beatmaker originally from Angola, who is currently moving between Lisbon and Paris; Milanese sound artist Marco Farina, a.k.a. Canva6; and repping the local scene, Vojtik, a queer, Roma artist from Detva who has lit up the Slovak alt scene with his single “Detviansky sen.” Other featured artists include DJ GÄP, Adela Mede, Kult Masek, elastix and Dead Janitors presents Stroke.
In the panels and lectures program, jury member Olga Bobrowska, a film scholar working in the field of animation and cultural theory who is also an activist and a curator, will talk about utopias in animation. Tadeáš Žďárský will give a lecture about degrowth economics. Experienced creatives will explore engaging storytelling Príbehom na stope, entering the “princesses arena”. Visitors can also look forward to Animation director and illustrator Martin Smatana‘s exhibition at the New Synagogue, named The Year of Good News 2022. Smatana has collected positive stories from around the world over the past year, to which he has also created images from second-hand textiles. A Year of Good News has also been published as a book.
The 2nd Student Forum, which will take place on June 27 in the New Synagogue, is a unique platform for European animation schools, providing space for students and teachers to compare approaches to teaching, distribution of student films or international collaborations, and bring students together with professionals. The festival organizers aim to make the Student Forum a permanent part of the festival and to continuously support the development of educational practices, school collaborations and the practical experiences they offer.
For the Children
This year, the Fest Anča team has again prepared a program for children and their parents, full of remarkable film experiences, engaging theatre performances and moments spent in a creative and stimulating environment.
The international competition of short animated films for children will present up to eight original films created in the last two years. One can’t-miss title is the comedy T-Rex, created by German director Julie Ocker, about a dinosaur who can’t play basketball. On the other hand, the Swiss short film Pond presents the unknown world of the inhabitants of an (extra)ordinary pond.
Two sections of non-competitive films are also waiting for the kids. In the first one, Cat and Moth presents a humorous story about a fluffy white cat who just wants to find the most comfortable resting place in the whole universe. In the second, take a closer look at the tiny world beneath our feet in Ant March and make friends with everyday road signs in Sign Up!. The Animation Studio of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava has also prepared a dedicated block of films for children at Fest Anča.
Young visitors can also look forward to a reading with no age limit called My Utopia. Or, enjoy a performance by the New Theatre from Nitra called Kocúr v čižmách, about how not all that glitters is gold, but goodness never loses its sparkle. Children and their parents will be able to immerse themselves in the Kruhy vody with the aforementioned Príbehom na stope storytelling troupe. Through the readings of exciting stories, they will discover the world of water goblins, water and everything connected with water.
The Biennial Animation Bratislava (BAB) festival will prepare a workshop called Tvory z Utópie during the festival Sunday at the Municipal Theatre Žilina, where curious boys and girls can learn the basics of stop motion animation.
The International Animation Festival Fest Anča 2023 is financially supported by the Audiovisual Fund. The festival was financially supported by the LITA Fund. The Fest Anča Student Forum received a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants.
