The World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb has announced the official selections for the Grand Competition – Short Film, Student Film Competition and Croatian Film Competition categories of the 2023 edition of the festival (June 5-10). The chosen films have been winnowed from a submission pool of some 1,800 films from 93 countries across the globe.
Almost 900 films were submitted for the Grand Competition – Short Film category alone, and 42 of them were selected to be presented at the festival (listed below). From 830 student submissions, 41 films were selected for the Student Film Competition (listed here), while the Croatian Film Competition will feature 19 films (listed here).
The international short film program includes festival favorites like Oscar nominees The Flying Sailor and Ice Merchants, Cannes Critics’ Week selections Scale and It’s Nice in Here, Elizabeth Hobbs’ The Debutante and Priit Tender’s Dog Apartment, as well as new works from directors Atsushi Wada, Stephen Irwin and Pernille Kjaer.
Grand Competition – Short Film
- A Kind of Testament, Stephen Vuillemin (Remembers / France / 2023)
- A Tiny Man, Aude David, Mikael Gaudin (La Belle Affaire Productions / France / 2022)
- Almost Forgotten, Dimitri Mihajlovic, Miguel Lima (BAP – Animation Studio / Portugal / 2023)
- Blush – An Extraordinary Voyage, Iiti Yli-Harja (Side Stories / Finland / 2022)
- Box Cutters, Naomi Van Niekerk (Ikki Films, Valk Productions, Dryfsand / France, Netherlands, South Africa / 2023)
- The Cactus, Ricardo Kump (Kump Produções / Brasil / 2022)
- Chamber of Shadows, Seyoung Ok (South Korea / 2023)
- Compound Eyes of Tropical, Zhang Xu Zhan (Zhan Zhan Xi Qi / Taiwan / 2022)
- The Debutante, Elizabeth Hobbs (Animate Projects / United Kingdom / 2022)
- Dog Apartment, Priit Tender (Oü Nukufilm / Estonia / 2022)
- Eeva, Lucija Mrzljak, Morten Tšinakov (Eesti Joonisfilm, Adriatic Animation / Estonia, Croatia / 2022)
- Family Portrait, Lea Vidaković (Adriatic Animation, Vivement Lundi!, Biberche Productions / Croatia, France, Serbia / 2023)
- The Flying Sailor, Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis (National Film Board of Canada / Canada / 2022)
- The Following Season, Natko Stipaničev (Kino Klub Split / Croatia / 2023)
- Fragile Love, Xie Li (Mitotase / China / 2022)
- The Garden of Heart, Olivér Hegyi (CUB Animation, Artichoke / Hungary, Slovakia / 2022)
- Greylands, Charlotte Waltert, Alvaro Schoeck (Virage Film / Switzerland / 2023)
- Ice Merchants, João Gonzalez (COLA Animation, Wildstream, Royal College of Art / Portugal, France, United Kingdom / 2022)
- Ikimono-san: Turtle, Atsushi Wada (New Deer / Japan / 2023)
- It’s Nice in Here, Robert-Jonathan Koeyers (Valk Productions / Netherlands / 2022)
- Juxtaposed LAND, ALIMO (Pigeon Productions, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture – Ithra Production / Poland, Saudi Arabia / 2023)
- La Pursé, Gabriel Nóbrega (Vetor Zero / Brazil / 2022)
- Love Me True, Inés Sedan (Lardux Films / France / 2023)
- Mao’s Mango Cult, Kayu Leung (TEDed Talk / France, United States, Hong Kong / 2022)
- Mariupol. A Hundred Nights, Sofiia Melnyk (GOGOLFEST / Ukraine, Germany / 2023)
- The Marrons Glacés, Delphine Hermans, Michel Vandam (Camera-etc / Belgium / 2022)
- The Master of the Swamps, Sasha Svirsky (XZ Production / Germany / 2023)
- No. 28, Zahra Salarnia (Iran, New Zealand / 2022)
- Oneluv, Varya Yakovleva (Studio SHAR / 2022)
- Our Pain, Shunsaku Hayashi (Shunsaku Hayashi Works / Japan / 2023)
- PARALLEL, Sam Orti (Conflictivos Productions / Spain / 2022)
- Phonorama, Alex Rey (Spain / 2022)
- PLSTC, Laen Sanches (France / 2022)
- Rosemary A.D. (After Dad), Ethan Barrett (Space Dog Film / United States / 2022)
- SCALE, Joseph Pierce (Melocoton Films, Bridge Way Films, Ozù Productions, Endorfilm / France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Czechia / 2022)
- Spring, Pernille Kjaer (Martina Scarpelli Studio / Denmark / 2023)
- Teacups, Alec Green, Finbar Watson (and maps and plans / Australia, Ireland / 2023)
- The Waiting, Volker Schlecht (mobyDOK medienproduktion / Germany / 2022)
- The World’s After, Florentina Gonzalez (Autour de Minuit / France / 2022)
- Where I Live, Susanne Jirkuff (Austria / 2022)
- WORLD TO ROAM, Stephen Irwin (small time inc. / United Kingdom / 2023)
- Y, Matea Kovač (Ustanova Zagreb film / Croatia / 2023)
The selection results for the Grand Competition – Feature Film, Films for Children Competition, VR Animation Competition and World Panorama, as well as the details of the rest of the festival program, will be announced soon.
To show its condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Animafest has chosen not to list Russia as a country of production origin on its program, while still supporting the selected artists and filmmakers who have spoken out publicly against their country’s aggression.
