The International Festival of Animated Films, ANIFILM (10-15 May), dedicated to following current trends and technologies in the animation sector, is bracing for its 21^st edition. The latest crop of animation will be showcased across six competitions. Besides feature-length and short film formats, the festival will be presenting different forms of animation via student films, abstract and non-narrative works, music videos, VR films and, last but not least, video games. European projects dominate in the international feature-film competition, where celebrated helmer Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated doc Flee [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
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intervista: Ari Folman
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intervista: Michaela Pavlátová
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The programme is brimming with “slapstick, comedy, jokes, satire, gags, black and other humours”, as the 21^st edition celebrates animated humour, taking in the widest possible spectrum from Looney Tunes, through political jokes, to gallows and morbid humour and all-round controversial animation in the Midnight section. One of the festival’s guests will be US animator Bill Plympton, who will introduce a showcase of his short works and his two features, I Married a Strange Person! and Cheatin’.

In addition to presenting the best of contemporary Ukrainian animation (including a special section that will screen Ukrainian films for children), ANIFILM will showcase a wealth of Czech productions, ranging from features, student and commissioned works to series, while the best animation will receive the Czech Television Award. Among the local works is Diana Cam Van Nguyen’s acclaimed personal animated short Love, Dad (see the interview), Suzie in the Garden by Lucie Sunková and Andrea Szelesová’s Sisters. The festival will also spotlight new media, with VR works such as Hubert Mróz’s immersive exploration of the origin of the Cthulhu Mythos in Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft, and the docufiction about the titular endangered indigenous language, Kusunda by Gayatri Parameswaran and Felix Gaedtke. The immersive works are accompanied by interactive projects, with 15 video games, including an atmospheric, handcrafted puzzle-adventure made entirely of paper, Papetura, and the open-world exploration game Sable, boasting an art style inspired by the works of Jean “Moebius” Giraud.

The festival has also prepared an industry programme, with several lectures on the topics of video-game development, the importance of memory and identity in visual design. The Work in Progress panel will introduce three feature-length animated projects in the making: the puppet film Living Large by Kristýna Dufková, about child obesity; the sitcom about a family of spiders The Websters [+leggi anche:
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The 21^st edition of the ANIFILM International Festival of Animated Films takes place in Liberec, Czech Republic, from 10-15 May; the full line-up is available here.