What is the role of stop-motion creators in the animation industry? They can be artists, craftsmen, businessmen, professionals, enthusiasts, teachers, students, parents. All of them could find their place on ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum — the yearly event organized by MOMAKIN focusing on joys and challenges coming from work in stop-motion industry. Every autumn, Łódź in Poland becomes the center of the stop-motion industry, bringing in the experts from all around the world — this year concentrating on the issues of green filmmaking, education and aligning family life with reality of work in animation.
Discussions, panels, lectures, one-on-one meetings, workshops, pitchings — ANIMARKT uses all kinds of methods to connect with its participants exchanging their knowledge, experiences and ideas. ANIMARKT 2023 was visited by professionals from all around the world gathering around latest stop-motion star — Pinocchio, puppet from the Oscar-winning film by Guillermo del Toro — to celebrate joys of stop-motion art while looking into the hardships stop-motion creators have to face. Negative influence on the environment, limited ways to acquire stop-motion education, tricky navigation through the job market and family life as a creator working in stop motion — these were key issues of ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum 2023.
MOMAKIN — organizer and initiator of ANIMARKT — is a company devoted to popularization of eco-friendly filmmaking practices. Apart from developing a green guide helping filmmakers to minimize everlasting imprint on the environment their work is inevitable going to leave, MOMAKIN uses every opportunity to promote sustainable growth in stop motion industry. ANIMARKT is one of the most important platforms focusing on new ways to make film development as green as possible. This year, attendees of the event were able to see, touch and hear unique qualities of experimental materials used in puppet and prop making. Seaweed, rice flour, wood dust, cactus — these are just a few of the alternatives used on eco-friendly stop-motion film sets.
ANIMARKT never shies away from wide-spread problems of the industry. The situation of women in the animation world, disadvantages creators in less privileged countries have to face, hardships of family life as a stop-motion creator — all of these issues are given a spotlight during every ANIMARKT edition. This year, it was parenthood and difficulties of balancing it with career in animation. How to support the family with demanding faraway travels? How to raise a child, working long exhausting hours on film sets? Can animation become a measure of connecting parents with children? All of these questions found variety of answers during this year’s edition.
When it comes to business, guests of ANIMARKT are unmatched — they are experienced professionals eager to share their knowledge to offer any kind of advice able to help beginning creators to step into animation job market. ANIMARKT invites prestigious animation studios’ representatives that devote their time to make business connections with each other and potential cooperators. Pitching competition, animation breakfasts, Meet Your Partner, Match&Meets — every year ANIMARKT becomes the place where great creative plans are put into motion and long lasting partnerships are initiated.
Theme of this year’s edition of ANIMARKT was also education — after publishing National Strategy for the Development of Industry Education for the Film Animation and Special Effects Industries, MOMAKIN’s efforts to make education in animation practical, easily accessible and targeted at the job market’s needs don’t stop. The biggest initiative putting MOMAKIN’s ideas to life is StopMoLab program — an intense seven-month-long stop-motion course allowing its participants to work with world’s biggest animation names acting as teachers and mentors. During ANIMARKT, producers, puppet makers and animators working on stop-motion classics directed by Tim Burton, Guillermo del Toro and Wes Anderson met with their pupils for live workshops and lectures, sharing their wide expertise.
Every edition of ANIMARKT is few-days-long event when stop-motion creators from the most distant corners of our planet unite in Polish Łódź to sink into the world of animation. Every edition means new guests invited, new films supported, new connections established and new ideas for improving the life of stop-motion creators — and the animation industry itself — brought to life.
What awaits us during another edition? More green filmmaking, more support for creators facing challenges in both personal and professional field and more doors opened for animation enthusiasts from all around the world.
Mark September 2024 in your calendars as the month of ANIMARKT 2024 — and await further details coming very, very soon!
