For the second time, Anibar is partnering up with Visegrad Group members through the project “Development of animation culture between Western Balkans and Visegrad Group”. The project will further foster the efforts of developing Western Balkan – V4 relationship in increasing the volume of cultural productions, which as a long-term effect have improvement in international film productions and audience enlargement. The project consists of several educational activities to be tutored by Visegrad experts and cultural productions that will take place in Kosovo, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

Educational activities during the Anibar Festival

The project will gather ten film critics from the Western Balkans to attend Film Criticism and Journalism Masterclass to enhance their critical and writing skills and review Anibar Festival films in competition categories. Two joint articles written by the participants will be published in AnibarPress magazine. The masterclass and workshop will be led by Olga Bobrowsa, Ph.D. candidate in Film Studies at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, specialized in classic Chinese animated film, director and co-founder of StopTrik International Film Festival.

Two workshops are additionally planned.

• During the workshop Visual storytelling, using stop-motion, Máté Szigeti, animation tutor from Primanima festival, will teach the younger generations about the basics of animation,animation on the frame, and how to create animated short videos using various materials through the technique of cut-out animation. The two workshops will result with an animated video produced by workshop participants that will be screened during the Closing Ceremony of Anibar Festival.
• During the workshop Hopping Future and Bouncing Past – Animating Silhouettes and Paint participants will have the opportunity to create a short story with the use of some of the oldest animation techniques – using the silhouettes of paper in the glass, as in the oldest animated film of Prince Ahmed’s film from 1928. Mikoláš Fišer and Viktorie Štěpánová, students from FAMU, will tutor the workshop.

Anibar Festival Student Jury aims to enhance the participants knowledge of film industry, jury judgment skills, enhance their professional development, and create more network through the festival. Students will undergo a week of training on how to evaluate animated films and understand the role of the festivals in the filmmaking industry. The student jury will be mentored by Kamila Dohnalová - industry program coordinator and Pavel Horáček - Program director and member of the program board from Anifilm Festival, Czech Republic. During the Closing Ceremony of Anibar Festival the student jury and the mentors will award the Best Student film.

During the Training of Trainers workshop participants will explore different approaches, look at local and international examples, discuss methods, strategies, didactics and techniques, explore and try out ideas, build up hands-on experiences and create practical solutions for possible workshop needs. The workshop will be mentored by Zsuzsanna Szabó.

Special Programs during Anibar Festival

Contemporary Czech Animation will highlight contemporary animation scene in the Czech Republic as very promising and self-confident. The program contains film students mostly and will be presented by Pavel Horáček, Program Director of Anifilm. FAMU is one of the oldest film schools in Europe, established in 1947 and built by the most influential Czech filmmakers of that time. The Special Program: Best of FAMU 2013 - 2018 will present a selection of the latest students’ works, which means the best animated movies and exercises created over the course of the past five years. The selection will also show the energy and attitude of the youngest students. Curator: Alexandra Hroncová,

Primanima World Festival of First Animations  (Budaörs, Hungary) is dedicated to student and first films. The special program: Hungarian Contemporary Animation presents the finest Hungarian animated short films made in the past few years by up-and-coming animation directors. Apart from having been screened at Primanima, the following films have been part of the line-up of such important festivals as the Berlinale, Annecy, Hiroshima, Sarajevo, Anim'st (Bucharest), Animafest (Zagreb), or Animateka (Ljubljana).
Curator: Orsolya Láng film director, member of Primanima's organizing team

Cinema trailers
Traditionally, Anibar Festival takes place in four cinemas, two indoor and two outdoor. Four short trailers, showcasing the four Anibar Festival cinemas will be produced by the students of FAMU; Bára Halířová, Michaela Mihalyiová, David Stumpf and Manri Kim. The four trailers will be screened before each screening during the Anibar Festival in the respective cinema. FAMU students that will produce the trailers, will be invited to Anibar Festival to present their work at Meet the Filmmakers activity. Meet the Filmmakers is an event organized in a form of discussion between filmmakers and open audience where the filmmakers show their experience in different aspects of filmmaking.

Best of Anibar Festival
Anibar will curate a special program with the best films from Western Balkan countries submitted in Anibar Festival. The program will be screened in Hungary, Czech Republic (x2) and Poland aiming to promote the Western Balkan animated films to the local audiences in partners countries.

• Read Our Comprehensive Coverage of Anibar Animation Festival.

The project “Development of animation culture between Western Balkans and Visegrad Group” is being implemented by Anibar (XK) and Civil Association for the Support of the Animated Film (CR), Primanima Ltd.(HU), Institute of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Marie Curie- Skłodowska University in Lublin (PL), The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague – Film and TV School – Department of Animated Film (CR). The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

The 10th Anibar Festival takes place 15-21 July in Peja, Kosovo.