Anim'est Festival, 13th edition, dedicated to avant-garde and experimental animated film

The International Film Festival Anim'est - the 13th edition, that will take place during the period of September 28 - October 7, is dedicated this year to experimental and avant-garde animations, bringing together some of the most unconventional and innovating animated visual experiments from the 20's and today, emblematic productions that marked the history of cinema and especially that of animated films. 

"This year's Anim'est Festival edition is dedicated to the avant-garde and experimental film, a film that basically stood at the base of film in general, not just animation. It is a quite ample perspective from five programs, that required a half-year search through all the world's archives," the director of the festival Mihai Mitrica told a press conference, on Tuesday. 

The festival will be opened with one of the most spectacular animated feature film of the year, "Another Day of Life", a production of the multi-award Polish studio Platige Image, co-directed by Spanish Raul de la Fuente and Polish Damian Nenow, announced Vlad Ilicevici, executive director of Anim'est. 

"Five films will be presented in the competition for the best feature film - "Ruben Brandt - Collector" (Hungary, directed by Milorad Krstic) that premiered this summer at the Locarno Film Festival, "Cinderella the Cat" (Italy, directed by Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone), a reinterpretation of the famous fairy tale on a darker note, inspired by the corruption and false promises of Italy and the city of Naples, in particular, "Hoffmaniada" (Russia, directed by Stanislav Sokolov), the only stop-motion feature film of the competition, ""A Man is Dead" (France, directed by Olivier Cossu), an emotional story about the workers' strikes of Brest in 1950 and "Tito and the Birds" (Brazil, directed by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, Andre Catoto Dias), movie that premiered in Annecy this summer. 

The winner of the competition will be awarded by a jury composed of Luce Grosjean, from France, Pavel Horacek, from the Czech Republic, the program director of the International Animated Film Anifilm, from Trebon and Romanian director Sergiu Negulici, the winner of the Romanian Anim'est competition of 2017, recently awarded with Grand Prix at Hiroshima IAFF for the short film "Splendida Moarte Accident (The Splendid Accidental Death)". 

The international short film competition, which decides the winner of the Anim'est Trophy, contains 42 short films, of the over 1,200 submitted. Some of the titles of this section are "This Magnificent Cake!", "III", directed by Marta Pajek, selected this year in the short series competition of Cannes, "The Cat's Regret", directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Feliciolo" or "Love He Said", directed by Ines Sedan, adapted after a poem by Henry Charles Bukowski. In the international short film competition we find a Romanian animated film - "Telefonul (The Telephone)", directed by Anca Damian. 

The student short film section gathers 41 of the most special, non-conforming and personal stories, fresh out the benches of the largest animation schools in the world, such as the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg - Germany, The Animation Workshop - Denmark, Gobelins - France, The Royal College of Art - London or Supinfocom - France. 

The animation studio invited to Anim'est 2018 is Cartoon Saloon, from Ireland. 

The country invited to the 13th edition of Anim'est is Austria, a country with a rich tradition in experimental animation, present on the festivities' agenda and with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum. 

Invited to this year's Anim'est is also Anifilm, the International Festival of Animated Films in Trebon, whose artistic director, Pavel Horacek, will be presenting the audience a Czech contemporary animation program. 

The 21 selected short films, from a total of 1,200 submitted, are addressed to children ranging from 3 to 12, they tackle topics such as friendship, caring for nature, tolerance, curiosity and courage. A jury formed of children will be selecting the winner of this section in which they can find adaptations of classical stories, such as "La Tortue d'or", a production of famous French animation studio Les Films du Nord, of some famous books, such as "The Highway Cat", or "A Little Light", directed by Vladislav Bayramgulov, who has also been directing the famous animated series "Masa and the Bear" since 2011. 

Anim'est is the only festival in Romania that proposes films for the Oscar Awards. Starting with 2017, the winner of the Anim'est Trophy automatically enters the long list of nominations for the Oscar Awards, in the category of Best animated short film, voted by the Members of the American Film Academy. 

AGERPRES National News Agency is media partner of the event.