Tricky Women / Tricky Realities Animation Festival, 10-14 March 2021
Festival Description
Tricky Women started 2001 and was the very first festival of animated films dedicated to female animation artists. It is always held in Vienna in March around International Women´s Day. 2021 the festival celebrates vibrantly its 20th anniversary. TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES is worldwide the only big recurring festival of animated films by female*/trans/inter creators
2021 Festival Coverage
Running from 10 to 14 March, the animation film festival provides a (virtual) platform for films by women*, their visions and stories, and presents an online celebration of twenty years of passionate dedication to animated film-making. The varied programme features a series of themed screening sessions, as well as lectures, presentations and artist talks. In the exhibition at Bildraum 07 which is being held in parallel with the festival, the film-makers negotiate interfaces and boundaries: between bodies and their surroundings, between materiality and immateriality, spatial and temporal, that which has been and that which is to come.
The film programmes – almost entirely available worldwide In total, the festival will be screening more than 140 animated films. As the centrepiece of the festival, the International Competition brings together trends and tendencies in independent animated film-making by women* all over the globe. The competition is a showcase for multi- award-winning films, nearly all of which are being screened in Austria for the first time. Other strands of the programme are devoted to newcomers to the world of animation and animated film-making in Austria. Animated Documentaries open up an eclectic array of intimate insights into personal lived realities, often packing a socio-political punch, while the Work Affairs and Struggling for the Better strands take a closer look at changing realities in everyday life and in the world of work.
Austrian premiere My Favorite War
In My Favorite War, film-maker Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen looks back on a period of contemporary history, telling her personal story of growing up in the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia. The multi-award-winning film, which is having its Austrian premiere at the festival, combines animation with live action and archive footage (During the online edition of Tricky Women/Tricky Realities this film can only be watched in Austria.)
Tricky Women/Tricky Realities turns twenty!
Our Happy Birthday programmes present films by friends and long-term collaborators of the festival. Audience favourites, award-winners and other important milestones from the festival's history will be showcased here, taking a look back to see how women have mobilised the medium of animated film to narrate their own tricky realities.
Spaces of possibility
Change is in the air. Themes of transformation, transition and the worlds in between run like a red line through this year's festival programme. With natural candour the films tell of escapes and new beginnings, question the status quo or shine a light on unconventional life stories and ways of living. Animated film articulates the unsayable and creates new spaces of possibility. That is exactly what the fesitval willl be exploring in the International Forum on Best Practice that forms part of the festival programme.
A series of lectures, presentations and discussions entitled "Change the narrative" looks at alternative possibilities for (film-based) storytelling beyond gender stereotypes and clichés, and places the spotlight on animation as a socio-political, artistic and philosophical medium. In the Spotlights on Signe Baumane and Caroline Leaf, two greats of the international independent animated film scene give a peek behind the scenes at the artistic and technical production processes that go into the creation of their works.
With the exception of two screening sessions, the entire festival programme will be available online worldwide with no geoblocking restrictions. All screening sessions will be available online for 48 hours.
Festival Trailer:
The festival trailer for Tricky Women/Tricky Realities 2021 was created by Renee Zhan. Renee won the 3-month-scholarship to live and work at Q21/MQ under the Artist-in-Residence program, she will be in Vienna from January till March 2021.
2020 Festival Coverage
2020 Festival Trailer
The new festival trailer for TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES 2020 was created by Rachel Gutgarts. Rachel won the 3-month-scholarship to live and work at Q21/MQ under the Artist-in-Residence program at Tricky Women 2018 for her film "A Love Letter To The One I Made Up". The trailer was made during her residency in Vienna in the spring of 2019.
Rachel Gutgarts about the trailer: A glimpse out of an imaginary nature TV show - A windy pastoral patch of flora and fauna. "I started looking for inspiration on nature TV shows, I saw one picture of a female mantis standing on a tree branch, a dark velvety background behind her, staring at me with her big bug eyes - The whole scene had a dark sexual undertone - the flora and fauna in all it's glory and disgust. The act itself fascinated me, explained by the all knowing national geographic narrator, telling me about natural selection and proteins. Myths surrounding female sexuality are there to express basic fears of the unknown. I want to approach the subject with a wink, Like the female mantis, I wanted to toy with the same stereotype I wish to devour."
Director and Animator: Rachel Gutgarts / Sound Design: Aviv Stern / Print: Rachel Gutgarts, Noam Horowitz
2019 Festival Coverage
2019 Festival Trailer:
Festival trailer made by Polish artist Marta Pajek. She won the 3-month-scholarship to live and work at Q21/MQ under the Artist in Residence Program at Tricky Women 2017 for her film Impossible Figures And Other Stories II. The trailer was made during her residency in Vienna in the fall of 2018.
For the TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES 2019 trailer, I chose to portray a witch – a woman not only tricky, but also wise and powerful. One, whose experience and intuition allows her to reach into our deepest and darkest emotions and create wonders from thin air. The festival brings together many amazing female filmmakers and the witch is a symbol of their power, wit and sensitivity - Marta Pajek
Sound Design: Michał Jankowski
2018 Festival News
2018 Trailer:
Festival trailer for Tricky Women 2018 made by Canadian artist Moïa Jobin-Paré. For her first animated short "4min15 au révélateur" Moïa won the 3-month-scholarship to live and work at Q21/MQ under the Artist in Residence Program. The images and sounds of the trailer were captured during the residency in Vienna in spring 2017.
Both images and sounds were captured during my residency in Vienna and the visit of Magali Babin, a sound designer from Montreal, who made the sound design. The trailer was filmed with super8 and digital cameras by the Donaukanal and in my studio at Q21, each frame was printed, then scratched one by one. Moïa Jobin-Paré
2021 Call For Entries (Archive)
The festival offers an international competition of animated short films finished after January 1st, 2019 and realised by female*/trans/inter filmmakers (male co-directors are welcome). Each filmmaker, producer or distributor may submit as many films as they like. Each film submitted must be accompanied by an entry form. No films entered in prior TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES Festivals shall be admitted
Special Calls
The special calls are not limited to recent works – feel free to send the festival as many of your films as you like, whether new or “old” (but not already submitted ones).
- Special Call Work/Work Affairs (in cooperation with Arbeiterkammer Wien/Chamber of Labour Vienna): The festival welcomes shorts entitled “work affairs” (digital work, paid/unpaid work, care work, income gap, basic income, work-life-balance, flexible working hours / “working without limits”, work utopias, ...).
- Feminism rocks!!! – Call out for feminist films!
- and Animated Feature Films for the non-competitive sections.
Awards
- TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES Award, worth 4,000 Euro
- 3-month scholarship to live and work at Q21/MQ under the Artist-in-Residence Program, worth 3,150 Euro
- Neo-Tel Award, worth 3,000 Euro
- Audience Award
- Award for an Austrian Animation
- Up & Coming TRICKY WOMEN/TRICKY REALITIES Award
Festival Regulations
Entry form via ShortFilmDepot or via the festival online form
Deadline: 1 Oct 2020
Event Dates
- From 10 March 2021 to 14 March 2021
