The 31st, Krakow-based Etiuda & Anima Festival promises a  lot of animation gems in its programme (22-27 October 2024). We have already announced the full selected competition films, both in the International Anima Competition and the Anima.PL competition.

Some of the recent standouts to check: new films from the Latvian Edmunds Jansons ('Freeride in C'), Izabela Plucińska ('Joko'), Thomas Renoldner ('Stampfer Dreams'), Koji Yamamura ('Extremely Short') and Nicolas Keppens ('Beautiful Men')

We also have the new film by the Oscar-nominated animation director Theodore Ushev (Blind Vaysha), 'The Wolf'.

A few years ago, I re-opened the short stories of Emilian Stanev, the Bulgarian writer of my childhood. I rediscovered his tales featuring animals and questioning the relationship between man and nature. These readings sparked my interest in the lives of wild animals, so feared by man. Are they more threatening than man?  I came up with the idea of a story about the rivalry between a lonely old man and a wolf. By submitting a first synopsis to CALQ, I won a grant that enabled me to develop the project. I refined my graphic research, perfected an animation technique never used before, and developed the script -Theodore Ushev

The Annecy Cristal winner and European Film Awards -nominated 'Flow' animation feature by Gints Zilbalodis opens the Krakow fest; this is a film that follows the director's 'Away' feature with another meditative case on the environment and our future with it.

A retrospective of the Swedish stop-motion animation author Niki Lindroth von Bahr will take place (23 October); all her four stop-motion films, including the multiply acclaimed 'The Burden' will be screened.

Something to Remeber, Niki Lindroth von Bahr

Peter Lord's 2012 'Pirates! The Band of Misfits' is another stop-motion animation offering, and a feature animation.  Peter Lord will give the same day (24 October) a masterclass on "Aardman Animations: Creating the Magic of Stop-Motion". The company has a big history, which dates back to 1972 (Lord co-founded Aardman along with David Sproxton) and a lot of Academy Awards (including two awards for Peter Lord himself) to show.

But be sure to check out the animation feature doc 'Pelican Blue' by László Csáki, a Hungarian doc which details the first days after the 1989 happenings -and some young but penniless Hungarians who want to travel to the now free 'Western side' (by forgery).

Thomas Renoldner has (25 October) his own book promotion accompanying the film 'Stampfer Dreams' (in competition). 

The introductory material provides an insight into the research at the beginning of the 19th century that paved the way for the invention of the phenakistiscope. The photo series that follows, which consists of 23 full-page images of the Optical Magic Discs, offers an illustration to support my proposal to assign Stampfer’s “short films” to different film genres - Thomas Renoldner

• Check all the Industry Events (Creative Lab) of the 31st Etiuda&Anima Festival

10 Romanian animated films  by Animest Festival (curated by Mihai Mitrică) will be screened during the festival. Among them: 'Cradle' (Paul Muresan, 2020), 'Suruaika' (Vlad Ilicevici,2022), 'I sit and look out' (Gabor Balazs 2021).  The Polish Filmmakers Association gala presents the awards for the best animated films of 2023 (including the film 'Opening Night' by Sara Szymańska).

I Sit and Look Out

None other but the Oscar-nominated Czech author Michaela Pavlátova will get a Special Golden Dinosaur award (26 October) 'for an outstanding artist and pedagogue'. Films by her students (including the Oscar-nominated 'Daughter' by Daria Kashcheeva will be screened during the event. A retrospective of her own personal animation works will follow the same day, and a chance to rediscover her multi-faceted work.

A unique work-in-progress for Marta Pajek's animation feature in development 'Zooka and the Bird' will be presented (26 October) during the festival; unlike her acclaimed animation shorts, this is a film aimed for children, yet her style might still be a strong point here as well.

Berlin-based animation director Volker Schlecht has his own retrospective, with films like 'Pink Street' (1997), 'Kaputt/Broken' (2015), and 'The Waiting' (2023). Moving to Stuttgart, an ITFS-prepared programme of animation shorts (including 'Zoon' by Jonatan Schwenk) follows.

Watch the 2024 Etiuda&Anima Festival trailer:

Etiuda & Anima Festival takes place between 22 and 27 October 2024 in Krakow, Poland.

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