Primanima World Festival of First Animations 2026

Festival Description

Primanima is an international festival and competition for first animations. Its co-founders launched the festival in 2012 with the goal of providing a platform for talented young animators to introduce their first films, as well as to add animation and other educational programs to the cultural life of Budaörs.

Primanima takes place in the buzzing little town of Budaörs, Hungary (in the suburb of the Hungarian capital, Budapest). In addition to the screenings visitors can enjoy international workshops, forums, design markets, exhibitions, concerts. The main host of the event is the Budaörs Animation Base and Creative Space (BABtér).

Call for Entries 2026

• your submission should be an animated film, meaning that it is produced frame-by-frame using various techniques other than live-action or animation mixed with live-action
• it should be completed after January 1st, 2024
• it should be no longer than 30 minutes
• it should have English subtitles included if the film has dialogues

Categories

 - Student Film
 - Graduation Film
 - First FIlm
 - Masters Competition
 - Children's Film
 - Primateen Film

• Festival Regulations
• Apply via the festival website (free) or via FilmFreeway
• Deadline: 29 May 2026 (Primanima Masters), 20 June 2026 (all other categories)

2024 Festival Coverage

A selection of animated films from countries across the world is screened at the 12th Primanima First World Animation Festival. Between 16 and 19 October, the young generation will once again take centre stage in the animation scene. Excellent student, exam, diploma and first films, masterpieces of independent animation filmmaking, industry programmes and a vibrant design market await you during the festival days.

Short Films by First-time Filmmakers

From the very beginning, Primanima's mission has been to present talented emerging animation directors and give them the space to showcase their works and get to know each other and the industry in order to create collaborations in the future (Young Directors Competition). In comparison to the previous editions, in 2024 a surprisingly large number of stop motion animations were submitted and selected for the competition, with a particularly strong representation of the genre this year.

Among them is Tereza Kovandová's FAMU graduation film ‘Humanity’, a dark comedy about how nerve-wracking it can be to stand in a queue in the presence of our fellow human beings, or Phoebe Jane Hart's Sundance Film Festival award-winning humorous ‘Bug Diner’ from CalArts, which is about the twists and turns of a secret romance, a workplace fantasy and a dissatisfied marriage in a roadside diner. Love and serial misunderstandings are also at the center of ‘The Wide Eyed Girl and the Long Legged Boy’, the first animated short film from Maria Hespanhol. ‘Adiós’, by José Prats from NFTS, also screened at Annecy, explores the themes of growing up and being left alone through a father-son relationship, while Daniel Sterlin-Altman's ‘Carrotica’, a graduation film from Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, reflects on sexuality, desire and solitude through the story of a teenage boy and his single mother. Among the films, ‘Stale Smoke’, directed by Arthur Jamain from Ateliers de Sévres, asks the question of how to open up and talk about inner trauma in the family. Another puppet animation from Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, ‘Recordari’ by Carolina Cruz, tells the story of the friendship of two seven-year-old girls and their family's daily life during the Pinochet military dictatorship in Santiago in 1985.

In the Young Directors Competition you can view the newest animated shorts from Hungarian universities as well. MOME Anim's two graduation films, ‘Children of the Bird’, a colourful fictional mythological piece about the birth and decline of our planet, directed by Júlia Tudisco, and ‘The Last Drop’, a film about the psychological and competitive effects of authoritarian coaching pressure on a top athlete, directed by Anna Tőkés. There will also be two graduation films from METU, Luca Márton Anna's ironic satire of a fellow-songwriter, ‘High Society’, and Viktória Romhányi's short film ‘The Clay’, which mixes 2D and clay animation techniques.

Masters Competition 

In this category, the audience will see the latest auteur short films by directors who have already completed their first or even their numerous films. This year's programme includes two Hungarian films, the enigmatic, experimental ‘Vegan Mayo’ by Luca Tóth, and Viktoria Traub's ‘Shoes and Hooves’, about a small-town pedicurist centaur girl Paula, which won the Best Animated Short Film at the Guanjuato International Film Festival in Mexico, and which was also screened in Annecy. In the varied film sections, full of fiction and fairy tales, or even more experimental works, you can find several Eastern European stories. ‘Father's Letter’ by Alexey Evstigneev is presenting the particular correspondence of the Russian meteorologist Professor Wangenheim from the gulag, Lucas Malbrun’s ‘Margarethe 89’ tells a story about a young East German punk girl in the last days of the dictatorship,  Jadwiga Kowalska’s ‘The Car That Came Back From the Sea’, the winner of the jury prize in Annecy, which tells the story of the Polish Solidarity period through the lens of a group of friends, and ‘Hurikán’ by Jan Saska, which got awarded by the audience at Annecy, follows a fictional but real-life Eastern European drama set in a troubled part of Prague, in which the pig-headed protagonist tries to gain the attention of a waitress.

Silhouettes Competition
The Silhouettes Competition was created with the aim of featuring as many experimental techniques, provocative or divisive themes and unconventional storytellings as possible.

The afternoon screenings, Hearsay and On Board, mainly show animated documentaries and experimental works. Hearsay is a collection of marginalised situations, stories and perspectives whose existence is questioned on a daily basis. In Marta Monteiro's ‘Cold Soup’, a woman looks back on the mental and physical abuse she suffered during her married life, while Julia Granillo Tostado's lyrical short ‘To be Seed’ speaks of women's force and resistance through a 17th century witch tale. The On Board section features films that take us through the difficulties of departure and arrival. Through personal stories, the films navigate us between danger and rescue. In Margherita Giusi's ‘The Meatseller’, we learn the real-life story of Selinna Ajamikoko, who, like her mother, aspires to be a meatseller. In Chloé Mazlo's ‘The Suitcase (La Valise)’, a woman wonders what to take with her from Venezuela, which she is forced to leave after 28 years.

The Primanima Academy hosts professional forums and masterclasses: this year, Polish stop-motion filmmaker Piotr Chmielewski will give a lecture on the present of stop-motion animation in Poland, Bella Szederkényi and Bálint Gelley, founders of CUB Animation studio, will talk about the role of the producers in the animation scene and the functioning of an animation studio, during the forum Are We Becoming Visual Illiterates? we will discuss the present and future of visual culture and the responsibility of education in the round table.

2023 Festival Coverage

• Festival Winners

2022 Festival Coverage

• View the festival winners
• (VIDEO): 10 Years of Primanima

2020 Festival Coverage

2019 Festival Coverage:

THE AWARD-WINNERS OF THE 8TH PRIMANIMA

AWARDS OF THE JURIES
GRAND PRIX: Barbora HALÍŘOVÁ: Hide N Seek (CZE

GEORGE PAL PRIZE FOR THE MOST PROMISING HUNGARIAN TALENT IN ANIMATION: HORESNYI Máté: Jacques’ Rampage or When Do We Lose Our Self-confidence? (HUN)
BEST FIRST FILM: Ryotaro MIYAJIMA: Castle (JAP)
BEST GRADUATION FILM: Daria KASHCHEEVA: Daughter (CZE)
BEST STUDENT FILM: Georis MATHIEU: Alfred Fauchet (BEL)

SPECIAL MENTIONS OF THE JURY MEMBERS:
Milen ALEMPIJEVIC – Michaela MIHÁLYI, David ŠTUMPF: Sh_t Happens (CZE/SVK/FRA)
Lucija MRZLJAK – Jung Hyun KIM: Sweet Sweat (EST)
Maria STEINMETZ’ – Cécile BRUN: Letting Go (CHE)

THE AWARD OF THE CHILDREN’S FILM JURY: Rémi DURIN: Big Wolf and Little Wolf (FRA)
PRIMASOUND JURY – BEST SOUND DESIGN: Daria KASHCHEEVA: Daughter (CZE) // Sound by: Daria Kashcheeva, Miroslav Chaloupka
PRIMASOUND SPECIAL MENTION: GYULAI Panni: Broken Things (HUN) // Sound by: Kalotás Csaba, Karina SPECHT: Squaring the Circle (POL) // Sound by: Paweł Cieślak

THE AWARD OF THE PRIMALTER JURY: GYULAI Panni: Broken Things (HUN)
THE AWARD OF THE PRIMAPSYCHO JURY FOR THE BEST FILM IN THE PRIMATEEN SECTION: Siqi SONG: Sister (USA)
THE FAVOURITE FILM OF THE STUDENT JURY: Frederic SIEGEL, Benjamin MORARD: The Lonely Orbit (CHE)
THE FAVOURITE FILM OF PRIMAKIDS JURY: Rémi DURIN: Big Wolf and Little Wolf (FRA)

AUDIENCE AWARDS

MOST POPULAR INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM: Michaela MIHÁLYI, David ŠTUMPF: Sh_t Happens (CZE/SVK/FRA)
GYULA MACSKÁSSY PRIZE FOR THE MOST POPULAR HUNGARIAN ANIMATION: ANDRASEV Nadja: Symbiosis (HUN/FRA)
MOST POPULAR INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM: Fokion XENOS: Heat Wave (GBR)
TIBOR CSERMÁK PRIZE FOR THE MOST POPULAR HUNGARIAN ANIMATION: KELEN Bálint: The Thrilling Tales of Dreadful Draco (HUN)
MOST POPULAR FILM FROM THE PRIMATEEN SELECTION: Christoph SAROW: Blieschow (DEU)

• Read our Interview with the Primanima curating team
• 60 Selected Films for Primanima Festival 2019
• Primanima workshop with Tomek Ducki and Gina Thorstensen

2018 Festival Coverage ( 24-27/10/18):

• Report: Primanima: A Festival In Transformation
• Take Me Please, Egg in the Primanima Winners
• Surviving Strategies in Animation: The Full Programme of the 7th Primanima Festival
• 61+32 Films For Primanima 2018
• Péter Lichter and Bori Máté Primanima Workshop