Slovenian animation retrospective at Animafest and Slovenian cinema presence at regional film festivals

The 36th edition of Animafest Zagreb took place in the capital of Croatia from 8–13 June. Slovenia was the focus country of this year’s edition and was represented with a five-part retrospective curated by the editor of the animated programme at the Slovenian Cinematheque and the director of the Animateka festival in Ljubljana Igor Prassel with the help of the Slovenian Film Centre, Slovenian Cinematheque and Slovene Animated Film Association (DSAF). Moreover, four Slovenian animated films competed in various sections, Composition (Mitja Manček, 2015) was shown in the Theme: Music and Animation section, the filmmaker Bibi Erjavec and producer Tina Smrekar took part in Rise and Shine workshop with their project Truth to Be Told, It’s Mostly Empty Space!, while Smrekar also sat on the jury for the animated features.

The first part of the retrospective was titled Historical Overview – From Puppet to Puppet in which films from Saša Dobrila’s 7 at Once (1952) and Miki Muster’s Winter Story (1962) to the works of Dušan Kastelic, Leon Vidmar and Špela Čadež were shown in an (almost) chronological order. The second part, titled The Historical Jump showcased the first Slovenian animated feature Socializing the Bull? (Milan Erič and Zvonko Čoh, 1998), with Čoh’s short Kiss Me Gentle Rubber (1984) serving as the opening film. The third part, titled Contemporary Scene – A Mix of Techniques and Voices offered an overview of the works of the contemporary filmmakers. The last two parts focused on children’s animation. More detailed information could be found on the link.

Leo Černic’s Cosmonauts was shown in the shorts competition, Lea Vučko’s The Girl Who Wasn’t Afraid of Bears and Timon Leder’s In a Faraway Forest: Apple of Discord were selected for the children’s and youth film competition, while Melita Sandrin’s Arachnophobia was a part of the student film competition. The latter three were also a part of the Croatian competition, as they were realised in co-production with Croatia.

To stay in Croatia and in the domain of the animated film, Kolja Saksida’s Koyaa and the Mischievous Objects was screened in the children’s and youth programme at the Festival of Mediterranean Film Split. At the other end of the region, Kukla’s film Fantasy competed at the Balkan Festival of Film Directing (BFFR) in Belgrade.

Source: Slovenian Film Centre