26th International Film Festival Etiuda&Anima

Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - Sunday, November 24, 2019

  • Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - Sunday, November 24, 2019
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Cinematic Morsels

Animations beyond the mainstream, indie productions and works by students at film schools in all corners of the globe – simply unmissable!

The International Film Festival Etiuda&Anima (19-24 November) has been promoting art animation and short films for many years, made by professionals and artists at the threshold of their careers. The event celebrates niche productions which rarely make it into the mainstream.

Around the world

The extensive programme of the 26th festival abounds with competition screenings and special features, meetings with artists and other accompanying events. The central point of the programme is two international competitions. The Etiuda section features 29 short films from Finland, Belgium, Germany, Thailand and Mexico competing for Gold, Silver and Bronze Dinosaur statuettes. Poland is also represented by Klaudia Folga’s The Turtle Cave, Michał Piotrowski’s Lolo and Helena Oborska’s Bitten starring Mary Komasa.

The international Anima competition includes 67 productions from all over the globe. They include real gems, such as the noir stop-motion animation filled with dark humour Entre sombras (dir. Mónica Santos, Alice Guimarães) and Piotr Milczarek’s Rain providing a lighthearted take on serious issues.

The screenings will be accompanied by the regular cycle Self-Portraits of Animation Artists. Izabela Plucińska, winner of the Silver Bear in Berlin for her short film Jam Session, and Igor Kovalyov, Ukrainian filmmaker and founder of the Pilot School of Animation in Moscow, reveal the secrets of their art. This year’s Special Gold Dinosaur goes to Hieronim Neumann, leading representative of experimental trends in Polish animations.

From the Isles

Special guests of this year’s Etiuda&Anima are Jayne Pilling presenting her selection of ten best British animations and Neil Pymer, creative director of Aardman Animations known for beloved films such as the Wallace and Gromit series, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run and Early Man.

From the Pantheon

As usual, the festival commemorates outstanding artists who are no longer with us. This year’s retrospective focuses on Mirosław Kijowicz – pioneer of Polish animation, film critic and lecturer. We will also recall filmmakers who passed away in the last year. The Farewells cycle includes screenings of documentaries dedicated to Agnès Varda (the director’s own Varda by Agnès), Bernardo Bertolucci (Bertolucci e la religione del cinema, dir. Mario Sesti) and Franco Zeffirelli (Franco Zeffirelli – Directing from Life, dir. Chris Hunt).

Crème de la crème

This year, the audience will have the unique opportunity to see feature-length animations of the last season which were presented at some of the most important film festivals.

The festival opens with Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (dir. Salvador Simo Busom), awarded at the Malaga Film Festival. The animation, revealing the background of Luis Buñuel’s only documentary Land Without Bread and seasoned with a pinch of surrealism, explores the director’s fascinating life, the political situation in 1930s Spain and Buñuel’s great dispute with Salvador Dalí.

We will also see The Swallows of Kabul (dir. Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobé Mévellec), screened at Cannes and revealing the gruelling situation faced by women living under the Taliban regime. Other screenings include the animated thriller Ruben Brandt, Collector (dir. Milorad Krstić) featuring myriad pop-culture references, and children’s films such as the Danish Checkered Ninja (dir. Anders Matthesen and Thorbjørn Christoffersen).

In addition…

The programme also includes workshops for children, hosted by the winner of Etiuda&Anima 2018 Lucija Mrzljak, and workshops on making movies on smartphones ran by the AMA Film Academy. The Papaya Young Directors competition shows that ads can also be film etudes, while Konrad Sierzputowski delivers his lecture Watch and Buy! Animated Series and the Toy Industry.

Accompanying events include a meeting with Leszek Dawid who talks about his latest film Broad Peak, an industry conference for rectors of film and art schools in Europe, and a launch of the second volume of the publication Propaganda, Ideology, Animation. Twisted Dreams edited by Olga and Michał Bobrowski and Etiuda&Anima’s artistic director Bogusław Zmudziński.

***

Autumn is the perfect time to hide away in a cinema and explore new films, new filmmakers, new knowledge and new skills. It’s easy to get lost in the thicket of attractions… but isn’t this the idea?

(Justyna Skalska, “Karnet” magazine)

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