StopTrik Festival 2026: Full Programme

Stop motion is back in Maribor. From 23 to 27 September, the 16th StopTrik International Film Festival will present 161 films made predominantly in a variety of stop motion techniques, alongside works that expand the possibilities of animated cinema.

 This year’s Official Selection comprises four sections: the international competitions Stop Motion Animation (29 films), Stop Motion Animation for Children (18 films) and Borderlands (12 experimental films combining stop motion with other cinematic forms), as well as the non-competitive Panorama programmes Open Frame (16 films that don’t sweat the technique) and Dead Media (11 films responding to the festival's 2026 theme). As always, Maribor Audiences, both children and adults, will award the festival’s Grand Prix and competition prizes, while the Maribor Student Jury will select its own winners.

StopTrik Festival Retrospective: Dead Media

 The focus of this year’s retrospectives is Dead Media, inspired by a concept introduced by Bruce Sterling in 1995 to describe obsolete technologies that once shaped how we communicated and imagined the world. From shadow theatre and magic lanterns to analogue photography and VHS tapes, these forgotten media remind us that the history of technology is also a history of culture. StopTrik approaches this idea not as nostalgia, but as an invitation to rediscover animation’s relationship with disappearing formats and to ask what remains alive when the devices themselves have vanished.

 The retrospective Dead Media: Fleeting Matters brings together films that consciously engage with obsolete or fading forms of animation, inviting viewers to slow down, decode and embrace the fragile pleasures of disappearing media. The second programme, Dead Media: In and Out Misinformation Society, extends the metaphor into today’s information landscape, exploring how animation reflects on propaganda, polarization of the public sphere, algorithmic communication and the growing mediatization of violence. Both retrospective programmes will have reprise screenings at the Slovenian Cinematheque in winter 2027.

Exhibitions and Discussions

PRINTED MOVEMENT – From Digital Sculpting to 3D Printing reveals the journey from digital models to handcrafted animation objects, while VUK JEVREMOVIĆ’S HUMAN GESTURES exposes the artist’s paintings and original frames from his films in order to hold onto the slow, the manual and the laborious. The panel 'Dead Media Spirit in Audio/Visual Culture' invites Thomas Renoldner (Austria) and Claudia Munksgaard-Palmqvist (Denmark) to examine how experimental animation transforms alongside changing technologies. The journalists Kristina Božič (Slovenia) and Boris Vasev (Slovenia), along with Assal Rad (Iran), a historian and the author of "The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran", will speak at the panel 'Mainstream Media in the Era of Genocides' addressing the relationship between journalism, public information and contemporary conflicts.

 Solidarity Programme

StopTrik's Solidarity Programme, which grew out of screenings and conversations supporting animation artists from Palestine and Ukraine, has become an essential part of the festival's identity. This year the festival turns its attention to war-torn Sudan, inviting audiences to encounter first-hand perspectives through the hybrid feature-length documentary 'Khartoum' (directed by Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timea M. Ahmed, Phil Cox) and conversations between one of the directors, Rawia Alhag, and the visual anthropologist, Prof. Ana Sarah Lunaček Brumen (University of Ljubljana)

Festival Partner Programmes

 Beirut Animation Nights present a showcase of Arab Animation. Animest Bucharest uncovers its Carte Blanche and shares its signature animated scare of Creepy Animation Night. Animateka contributes programmes for younger audiences, including the Slovenian co-produced feature Tales from the Magic Garden. Meanwhile, curators Nadya Svirskaia of the nomadic Shcha 7 Sec Animation Festival and Krste Gospodinovski of Flipbook Film Festival will meet in the ever-unpredictable Curators Battle.

Workshops on Animation

The festival remains as committed to making animation as it is to screening it. Children will create their first films with Melita Sandrin and Domen Sajovic (Slovenia); Miha Reja (Slovenia) will lead the open Ad-Hoc Lab; and the flagship Workshot 2.0, organised with eight European art schools and the University of Nova Gorica School of Arts, will bring together emerging filmmakers under the Dead Media-themed workshop, guided by mentors Max Hattler (Germany / Hong Kong) and Moïa Jobin-Paré (Canada).

 Talking About Animation

Max Hattler and Moïa Jobin-Paré’s works will be insightfully introduced at the Imagining the Authors screening-and-talk event. And you can meet all the attending filmmakers at the post-screenings Q&A. The festival also welcomes everyone to join Trik Show, the Saturday&Sunday sessions with the filmmakers from the Official Selection who uncover their tricks, share obstacles and solutions, and discuss in detail their unique approaches to stop motion. 

The Full Daily Schedule of the 16th StopTrik Festival 

Monday, 21. 9. 2026

9.00 / Distribution Animateka: Baker Boris and Friends / Lutkovno gledališče Maribor, Velika dvorana
11.00 / School screening: International Competition Programme: Stop Motion Animation for Children II / Lutkovno gledališče Maribor, Velika dvorana
12.00 / PRESS CONFERENCE / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče

Tuesday, 22. 9. 2026 

9.00 / School screening: International Competition Programme: Stop Motion Animation for Children I / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
11.00 / School screening: International Competition Programme: Stop Moton Animation for Children III / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana

Wednesday, 23. 9. 2026

10.00 / Partner Festival presentation for high school students: Arab Animation from Beirut Animation Nights / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
14.00 / Imagining the Authors: Moïa Jobin-Paré in Max Hattler / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
19.00 / Festival Opening with Retrospective I: Dead Media: Fleeting Matters / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
21.30 / Opening concert: nevem nevem / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče 

Thursday, 24. 9. 2026 

9.00 / Partner Festival presentation for high school students: Animest Bucharest Carte Blanche at StopTrik / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
14.00 / Panel Discussion: Dead Media Spirit in Audio/Visual Culture / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
16.00 / Workshop: AD-HOC LAB. Criss-Cross Collage with Miha Reja / Vetrinjski dvor, freske
16.00 / Exhibition Opening: Vuk Jevremović’s Humans Gestures / Vetrinjski dvor, preddverje
17.00 / Panel Discussion: Mainstream Media in the Era of Genocide / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
19.00 / International Competition Prorgramme: Stop Motion Animation I / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
21.00 / Animated Entertainment: Creepy Animation Night / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče
22:15 / Animated Entertainment: Animated Battle: The Rise of the Undead Media / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče

Friday, 25. 9. 2026

15.00 / Solidarity with Sudan: Khartoum / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
16.00 / Delavnica: AD-HOC LAB. Criss-Cross Collage with Miha Reja / Workshop: AD-HOC LAB. Collage animation with Miha Reja / Vetrinjski dvor, freske
18.00 / International Competition Programme: Stop Motion Animation II / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
20.00 / International Competition Programme: Stop Motion Animation III / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
22.00 / Concert: Nina Bulatovix x VXVX / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče

Saturday, 26. 9. 2026

11.00 / Talk with the Authors: TrikShow I / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
16.00 / Official Selection: Panorama: Open Frame / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
18.00 / Official Selection: Panorama: Dead Media / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
20.00 / International Competition Programme: Borderlands / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
22.00 / Concert: DJ Borka x Toni Soprano Meneglejte / Vetrinjski dvor, dvorišče

Sunday, 27. 9. 2026 

11.00 / Talk with the Authors: TrikShow II / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
16.00 / Retrospective II: Dead Media: In and Out Misinformation Society / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana
19.00 / Festival Closing with the presentation of the winning films / Vetrinjski dvor, velika dvorana

Before the Festival / 10. 09. - 27. 09. 2026

10. - 27. 09. 2026 / Exhibition: Vuk Jevremović’s Human Gestures / Vetrinjski dvor, preddverje
16. - 19. 09. 2026 / Workshot: Plasticine - Children's Stop Motion Animation Workshop with Melita Sandrin and Domen Sajovic / Lutkovno gledališče Maribor
17. - 27. 09. 2026 / Workshot 2.0: Dead Media Reloaded/ Zoom, Vetrinjski dvor, Lutkovno gledališče Maribor
22. 09. – 16. 10. 2026 / Aleksander Andželović: PRINTED MOVEMENT – From Digital Sculpting to 3D Printing / OBRAT

Our Comprehensive Coverage of StopTrik Festival

The 16th StopTrik International Film Festival takes place in Maribor from 23 to 27 September 2026. The full festival program, including links to event descriptions, is available at stoptrik.com. All events are free of charge.

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