36th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb 2026, which takes place from 8 to 13 June at the SC Cinema, the Kinoteka Cinema, the Museum of Contemporary Art and other locations across the city. The film programme consists of more than 300 titles.

Our essential festival highlights

Short Animation Competition

The submitted entries for Animafest 2026 exceed a record 2,100 from 95 countries around the world, another record; the festival will feature 38 world premieres in all the sections.

The full short animation film lineup

Already acclaimed films, like Natalia Mirzoyan's 2025 Cannes-presented stop-motion 'Winter in March' are here; Sylwia Szkiladz's immigrant experience in the Oscar-shortlisted 'Autokar' is also included in the Grand Competition of Short Films.

We also see 2026 films, like the queer-themed, Berlin-premiered 'Cosmonauts' by  Leo Černic; the new film by Sasha Svirsky, 'Unidentified non-flying objects', 'or the relationship-tester 'Arachnophobia' by Melita Sandrin (University of Nova Gorica School of Arts - Croatian competition).

Jury

• Oscar winner and Pixar's golden generation member, animator, producer and screenwriter Jan Pinkava
• Dutch animator Nina Gantz
• Japanese animator Sawako Kabuki,
• Maarten van Gageldonk, programme director of the Dutch Kaboom festival and animation professor 
•  Paola Orlić. art historian and, until recently, Animafest producer

Programme Notes: Kabuki and Gantz will also hold masterclasses on their working methods, and Kabuki's greatest hits can also be seen in the film program and presentation 'New New: The New Wave of Japanese Short Animation', in which most of the authors will present their films in person.

Cosmonauts, Leo Černic

Feature Competition

8 Feature Competition films have already been selected for Animafest Zagreb.  Some experimental offerings are here, like the Cannes-premiered 'Dandelion's Odyssey' by Momoko Seto. The new animation feature 'Decorado' by Alberto Vázquez, who has a solid record in both short and feature animation, crossing the line between the two.

We see two features from Brazil, the experimentally-minded 'Matamortes' by Thiago Martins de Melo and the satire 'Son of A Bitch', by Erica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Sávio Leite, and Tania Anaya.

Discover the full lineup

Jury:

• Pierre Yves Drapeau,  Canadian sound designer and film composer 
• Mariam Kandelaki, Georgian director and producer
• Tina Smrekar,  Slovenian producer and mentor 

Programme Notes:

• The screenings of 'Son of a Bitch' (Erica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Sávio Leite, Tania Anaya) and 'Dandelion Odyssey' (Momoko Seto) are inclusive – accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as the blind and visually impaired (equipped with inclusive subtitles and a recording of the translation into Croatian sign language and audio description), and the cinema space is accessible to people with disabilities.
• Pierre Yves Drapeau will also give a masterclass on his work

Dandelion's Odyssey, Momoko Seto

Student Film Competition and Croatian Film Competition

Jury

The joint jury of the Student Film Competition (38 films, two of which come from the winners of the Best Animation School Award – the RE:ANIMA educational programme of three schools from Portugal, Belgium and Finland, which is also hosting a separate retrospective) and the Croatian Film Competition

• Krste Gospodinovski, Macedonian director and animator
• Marta Magnuska, Polish director and animator  (also a lecturer in the AFN Edu programme)
• Annegret Richter,  artistic director of the Stuttgart festival and vice president of ASIFA Germany

The full selection

 Music as Thematic Focus, Slovenia as Focus Country

Artistic director Daneil Šuljić, a musician himself, has decided to dedicate the central theme section of Animafest 2026 to music as one of the most important elements of animated film: from classical scores to jazz, from musicals to experimental forms of visual music. Among the works in which animation interprets canonical compositions or re-examines them through parody and stylisation, we will see 'What's Opera, Doc?; by Chuck Jones, 'Papageno' by Lotte Reiniger, 'Satiemania' by Zdenko Gašparović and 'Gloria Victoria' by Theodore Ushev, while the jazz section brings the energy of improvisation, rhythmic playfulness and formal freedom – we meet Tom and Jerry, Pink Panther and Droopy in this segment, just like Peter Lord's legendary music video for Nina Simone, but also films by Norman McLaren, John Hubley and others.

• Musicals by Rosto, Darija Kopiec, and Katarína Kerekesova, and in the segment 'Tango, Techno and Other Movements', modern classics by Tomek Popakul, Yoriko Mizushiri, Nina Winiger, and William Kentridge, as well as slightly older ones by Rastko Ćirić and Zbigniew Rybczyński.
• Experimental works that blur the boundaries of sound and image are signed by Xu An and Xi Chen, Slobodan Tomić, Thomas Renoldner, Steven Subotnick and Stas Santimov.
• The last segment, dedicated to visual music and ranging from 1937 to 2025, i.e., from Len Lye, to Mary Ellen Bute and Oskar Fischinger, to Max Hattler and Tamas Patrovics, was compiled by Polish animation curator Michał Bobrowski

The country in focus of Animafest 2026 is Slovenia – Croatia's neighboring cinema with which it frequently and fruitfully collaborates, but whose animation history, regardless of proximity and common former state, developed in separate directions. 

• The first segment: puppets and cartoons (Saša Dobrila, Dušan Kastelic, Leon Vidmar and Špela Čadež, Miki Muster, Črt Škodlar, Koni Steinbacher and Grega Mastnak) 
• The second segment: Zvonko Čoh's groundbreaking feature film 'The Socialization of a Bull'
• The third segment: contemporary scene (Leo Černic, Lea Vučko, Zarja Menart, Miha Reja, Š. Čadež, and others)
• The fourth and fifth segments are entirely dedicated to children's films, including Timon Leder, G. Mastnak, and Kolja Saksida (programmer: Igor Prassel, founder of Animateka and curator of the Slovenian Kinoteka)

More programme highlights

• The retrospective section, Masters of Animation, is dedicated to British artist Joanna Quinn, winner of the Animafest 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award. 15 films ee 15 of her films from the period 1987–2025, including the classics 'Girls' Night Out', 'Body Beautiful', 'Britannia' and 'Affairs of the Art', as well as the more recent film 'This Land is a Woman\ dedicated to the women of Gaza. Quinn will also give a masterclass and is the protagonist of Animafest's exhibition programme, including a retrospective exhibition at the Kranjčar Gallery 
• Auteur retrospective with five works from the period 2006-2025 is also organized by Animafest for Marko Meštrović, one of the first authors of the new generation of successors of the Zagreb School from the late 1990s and early 2000s
• In collaboration with Restart, Dokukino KIC is also hosting a special programme of animated documentaries Animadoks with three recent feature-length blockbusters (Pelican Blue, They Shot the Piano Player, Olivia & the Clouds)
•  The WTF OFF section, curated by Sébastien Sperer, brings together 11 intense and wacky short films from around the world in an unforgettable late-night experience that explores the edges, cracks and tremors of the image, storytelling and the viewer.
• Time for the Masters again brings new works by big names associated with Animafest. This time they are Miloš Tomić, Georges Sifianos, Theodore Ushev, Dennis Tupicoff, Cordell Barker, Donato Sansone, Suresh Eriyat and Bruno Collet.

Affairs of the Art, Joanna Quinn

Animafest Scanner

The industry segment of Animafest 2026 is spearheaded by the 13th Animafest Scanner symposium (KIC, 9 and 10 June) with a keynote lecture by the winner of the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies, Amid Amidi, CartoonBrew founder.

Open Air

Sunday, June 7 at 9:30 PM, in the courtyard of the Academy of Fine Arts. With live musical accompaniment, the oldest surviving feature-length animated film 'The Adventures of Prince Ahmed' by the legendary Lotte Reiniger will be screened 

Visual Identity and Trailer:

The festival trailer comes from author Sunčana Brkulj and musician Tonota. Brkulj is also the author of the festival visual, which was incorporated into the festival's overall visual identity by the Kuna zlatica studio.  Watch the festival trailer

Animafest Zagreb takes place in Zagreb, Croatia, between 8 and 13 June 2026.

Want to read more free articles like this?

Keep this professional animation journalism effort relevant and updated. Become our patron