Animafest 2023 has unveiled the core of its annual Zagreb animation festival, the Oscar-qualifying Grand Competition Short Film, which this year will screen 42 works from 34 production countries. These were selected from nearly 900 submissions reviewed by the selection committee of Daniel Šuljić, Margit Antauer and Marina Kožul. Croatia is represented by four firms in the official selection: Family Portrait by Lea Vidaković, The Following Season by Natko Stipaničev, Y by Matea Kovač and Eeva by Lucija Mrzljak & Morten Tšinakov.
Organizers note that this year’s Grand Competition reflects the tension between tradition and modernity, with an exceptional number of shorts inspired by literary classics and those crafted in monochrome techniques, as well as explorations in AI technology — such as in Laen Sanches’ PLSTC (France) and The Following Season — and films that address the issues and anxieties faced by today’s youth, like Florentina González’s apocalyptic Zoomer comedy The World’s After (France) or Inés Sedan’s surreal dive into online dating, Love Me True (France). Stories based on real events are also well represented, such as Sofia Melnyk’s Mariupol: A Hundred Nights, inspired by a young Ukrainian child’s experience living through the Russian invasion.
Another noted trend is the intersection of form and content, and address of the medium of animation and film in general through the eye candy of A Kind of Testament (Stephen Vuillemin, France), the Muybridge stop-motion of Chamber of Shadows (Seyoung Ok, Korea) or the story of a young painter’s entrance exam in The Garden of Heart (Olivér Hegyi, Hungary).
Social issues under the lens include the environment (Volker Schlecht’s story about American biologist Karen Lips, The Waiting [Germany]), women’s experiences (Xie Li’s staticky, absurdist metaphor for marital oppression in Fragile Love [China]), the superficiality of modern life, intrusion of the intimate home sphere (Varya Yakoleva’s Oneluv), racial violence (Cannes selected, Oscar shortlisted It’s Nice in Here by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers, Netherlands) and historical-cultural spotlights on China (Mao’s Mango Cult by Kayu Leung), Taiwan (Compound Eyes of Tropical by Zhan Zhang Xu), Iran (No. 28 by Zahra Salarnia) and Russia (Sasha Svirsky’s The Master of the Swamp).
Films about family life and childhood experiences are once again well represented, typified by Ethan Barrett’s childishly crayon-animated autobiographical piece Rosemary AD (After Dad), as well as the application of classical techniques such as the pencil, charcoal and sand animation of Susanne Jirkuff, ALIMO and Naomi Van Niekerk. The committee noted that unlike in previous, post-pandemic years, filmmakers seem to be coming out of their solipsistic introspections to look outward once more.
Animafest 2023 will welcome notable names from the global animation scene: Canadian filmmakers Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, winners of the Animafest Grand Prix, Cannes Palme d’Or and Annecy Cristal, return with their third Oscar-nominated short, The Flying Sailor; while Japanese auteur Atsushi Wada brings Ikimono-san: Turtle and British artist Stephen Irwin delivers a hybrid media allegory about parental anxiety in World to Roam. Another of this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts in the competition is João Gonzalez’s Ice Merchants. And Elizabeth Hobbs’ dreamy ink and paper collage approach to early 20th century feminism, The Debutante, will be an attractive title, fresh off its shortlisting for the Academy Awards and nomination for the European Film Awards.
Attendees will also get to experience on screen the animated reminiscences of The Marrons Glacés (Delphine Hermans & Michel Vandam, Belgium), the stop-motion tale of an alienated ballet dancer in Dog Apartment (Priit Tender, Estonia) and the tender rescue stories of Teacups (Alec Green, Finbar
Watson, Australia/Ireland) — recounting the surreal interactions one man had over the years with the hundreds of suicidal individuals contemplating jumping from the cliff by his house, voice starring Hugo Weaving.
Inventive techniques bring to life Santiago Dabove’s horror story Cactus (Ricardo Kump, Brazil) in collage, Will Self’s hallucinatory addiction drama Scale (Joseph Pierce, France/U.K./Belgium/Czechia) in rotoscopy, the traumatic memory of Almost Forgotten (Dimitri Mihajlović & Miguel Lima, Portugal) in inkjet-inspired painting and the unmissable visual experience of experimental artist Shunsaku Hayashi’s Our Pain (Hong Kong), blending painting, drawing, clay and rotoscopy.
Of course, moments of levity can also be found in the lineup, with the committee pointing out Alex Ray’s Fonorama (Spain), a satirical sci-fi multiverse lampooning telecom marketing, smartphone obsession and other cliches in a fictional New York peppered with winks for cinephiles. Toeing the line are the harrowing but witty Parallel (Sam Orti, Spain) and La Pursé (Gabriel Nóbrega & Lucas René, Brazil), which showcase the effective use of stop-motion to create worlds of animated horror.
Animafest will be held in Zagreb, Croatia from June 5-10. Registration and more information available at animafest.hr.
