The Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (ITFS), held from April 23 to April 28, 2013, screens around 1,000 of the best animated films from around the world.

The nine competition programmes are endowed with prize money of more than 65,000 Euros in total. The International Competition will be showing the diversity of animated film, including the Oscar-nominated short film “Head over Heels” by Timothy Reckart and productions from all over the world, for example, from Germany, France, Malawi, Australia, China, Japan, Canada, Latvia, and many more.

The French-Belgium documentary film Approved for Adoption (Jung), the Brazilian Rio 2096 - A story of Love and Fury (Luiz Bolognesi, 2013), Leconte's The Suicide Shop, and Mamoru Hosoda's The Wolf Children are among the features to compete for the Animovie award for best feature.

The Stuttgart region is well-represented by two productions from the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg – “Kellerkind” and “Oh Sheep!”.

Twenty important pioneers of the ITFS will present a personal retrospective, showcasing twenty films from previous festivals that they have personally selected.

The festival also showcases the works of animation artists such as Atsushi Wada and Jakob Schuh, as well as workshops presented by top-class professionals. The Oscar-nominated British animator Barry Purves curates a special programme of stop-motion films, which will be introduced at the ITFS 2013 by Ron Diamond, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

 The Animated Com Award focuses on the areas of advertising, spatial communication, and technology. It further includes the special award Mercedes-Benz Classic: Silver Arrows.

The Animated Fashion Award, initiated in cooperation with the fashion and lifestyle company Breuninger, is addressed to young and inspired talents from the creative and extremely innovative fields of fashion design and animated film.

The children’s festival Tricks for Kids (located in the new Tricks for Kids venue, Mercedes-Benz Museum, among other places) presents the best and most recent films and series for children and families. Filmmakers will be present to discuss their films and share insights into their professional experiences with the children.

David Silverman (The Simpsons) is also expected to present the Oscar-nominated short film “Maggie Simpson – The Longest Daycare.

 The ITFS will showcase worldwide developments in animated film through several programs. Anand Gurnani will curate two programmes for the host country India: a programme with short films and a programme with series and commercials.

 The director of the Zimbabwe Festival of African-Inspired Animation in Harare will present Animated Africa. Another topic will be the Arabic world of animated film. This programme includes a co-production panel for new projects, which will be implemented in co-operation with the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

 The In Persona series, internationally renowned and artistically outstanding animation filmmakers from all over the world, provide a personal insight into their work and working methods. Those participating, amongst others, are the British animator Barry Purves, Sieglinde Hamacher, and Jakob Schuh, the producer of the Gruffalo.

Animation studios such as Caligari Film (Munich) with its 3D family film “Knight Rusty” and Studio100/M.AR.K.13 (Stuttgart) with their project “Maya the Bee” as well as the studios Pixar (“Toy Story”, “Merida”) and Constantin Film have announced their coming.

Visit ITFS for all programme details.