Animateka International Animated Film Festival 2024

Festival Description:

Animateka is a week-long international festival of animated film, takes place every year in Ljubljana's Kinodvor and Slovenska kinoteka. Beginning on the first Monday in December, it focuses primarily on the latest production of East and Central European short films. European student films and International films for children.

2024 Festival Coverage

The poster designed for this year’s festival edition by the long-time festivalgoer Chintis Lundgren, an Estonian-Croatian artist based in France, shows the traditional festival atmosphere in the Kinodvor Café.

Since the start of the festival, the Main Competition programme has been dedicated to animated shorts from Central, South and East Europe, the European Young Talents competition programme to student animations from European schools, and the Elephant in Competition programme to children’s animations from all over the world.

 800 films were submitted (check the selections). The Best of the World strand traditionally showcases the most daring and highly acclaimed award-winning international animated gems. Each year we are surprised by innovative Animated Documentaries that address many important social and historical themes. Two programmes of shorts for adults, titled The Great Flood and A New World Rising, were conceived in collaboration with the partner festival Fest Anča from Žilina, Slovakia. For the first time ever, the festival presents the programme The Team Has Spoken, an eclectic mix of the selected tastes of the Animateka festival team. 

In Jurilicious, the festival is showing the films made or selected by this year’s jury members. Joining distributor Wouter Jansen from the boutique sales company Square Eyes are the artist behind the 2024 festival poster, Chintis Lundgren, Basque filmmaker with a PhD in art, Izibene Oñederra, German rising star of hybrid animation and innovative sound design, Jonatan Schwenk, and London-based Finnish independent animator and artist, Jenny Jokela.

In animation features, Animateka will be screening the Slovenian premieres of seven feature films -among them Sultana's Dream (El sueño de la sultana, 2023) by the  Isabel Herguera, 'Flow' by Gints Zilbalodis, and 'Memoirs of a Snail' by Adam Elliot.

Call for Entries (Archive) 

The 21st Animateka International Animated Film Festival will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 2 to 8 December 2024. 

Main Competition Programme (short animated films from Central, South, and Eastern Europe)
The competition is open to short animated films (the duration of which must not exceed 30 minutes of total running time per film) produced or co-produced in the following countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the Ukraine.

The Elephant in Competition (an international programme of short animated films for children)
The competition is open to short animated films (the duration of which must not exceed 30 minutes of total running time per film) for children, regardless of the production country

European Young Talents Competition Programme (short animated films made by European students)
The competition is open to short animated films (the duration of which must not exceed 30 minutes of total running time per film) made by students within the educational institutions in the EU or the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK.

VR@ANIMATEKA Competition Programme (an international programme of animated VR works)
The competition is open to short animated projects made for VR, specifically to VR works in the VR (6DOF), VR (3DOF), Interactive 360°, and 360° Video format (the duration of which must not exceed 30 minutes of total running time per project).

The films must be completed in 2023 or 2024. Films previously screened at the Animateka festival are not eligible.

• Festival Regulations
• Entry Form
• Deadline: 15 July 2024
  

2023 Coverage

• 2023 Animateka Winners
• Naomi van Nienerk Masterclass (GoCritic! Review)
• Dahee Jeong Masterclass (GoCritic! Review)
• Animateka Animation Docs Programme (GoCritic! Review)

2022 Festival Coverage

• Festival Winners
• Tal Kantor masterclass at Animateka (GoCritic! Review)
• European Young Talents (GoCritic! Review)
• Boris Labbe at Animateka (GoCritic! Review)

2021 Festival Coverage

Award Winners


2020 Festival Coverage

• Animateka Winners
• Animateka Selection Results

 2019 Festival Coverage

• Animateka 2019 Winners
• Animateka 2019 Catalogue
• Selection Results 2019: Main Competition
• Selection Results 2019: European Young Talents Competition
• The Elephant in Competition
  
• Animateka 2019 Goes Baltic

The author of the 16th Animateka visual identity is Edmunds Jansons, a renowned animation film director and graphic designer from Latvia.

From its very beginning the cinema has developed as a two-headed eagle - with one head looking into reality - documenting, observing, commenting our lives; the other head looking to the magical side of life - where the dreams, tricks and fantasies are. What I like about animation the most is that these two sides/directions coexist there naturally. That feeling about the duality of animation - I tried to capture it in the poster. Why fishermen - that’s the first image that comes to my mind when I hear “Baltics” - sea, fish, boats, fishermen - silent, harsh and strong - Edmunds Jansons

2018 festival coverage:

This year the festival received 669 films, which is 65 more than last year. 120 out of 696 films tried to get into the Central end Eastern European competition programme, 281 films applied to compete in the Young Talents competition, while 268 of them would like to take a chance in the Elephant competition programme, aimed at children. Submissions were received from 63 different countries, from Poland and France to Singapore and Afghanistan. Slovene animators did their part too, as they sent 35 films.

Here's the full festival daily schedule

• Eastern and Central European Competition Programme Schedule
• The Elephant in Competition Schedule
• European Young Talents Schedule
• Špela Čadež and Zarja Menart Design the 2018 Animateka Poster

2017 Festival News

• Check out the 2017 Animateka Masterclasses and Interviews
• The 2017 Animateka winners
  

For the Animateka Pro Pitch competition, see here