The best animated short films from around the world compete for the Anča Award. The first international competition block includes films about the journey of a prosthesis, the loss of loved ones, and finding identity. Join this mysterious journey that will take you to a luxurious world of unfulfilled dreams and nostalgia, and an underground hazardous world. The section contains films from both professionals and students.
Gaby, Zoé, Sarah and Kenza are 16 years old and inseparable. One evening, they come inside soaked to the skin.
When it shrinks, it expands. It floats and it sinks. It separates but connects. When I think I’m watching them, they're actually watching me. A charming animation rhyme that weaves together the many days of observing, recording, and experimenting.
This intensely personal film deals with the universal topic of loss in a way that shows the power of contemporary artist animation and pushes the medium to its limits, by mixing computer animation and with original and archival footage.
Confused by the whole world and his own body, a teenager is forced to discover in a strange way the truth about his sexual identity by confronting his other half.
A man gets trapped underground, injured and forced to remain motionless, he only has his cell phone to kill time. It doesn't take long for him to realize that he is not alone.
3 generations, 3 narrations, 3 different points of view. A dance of generations.
Newly orphaned and freshly wounded from an immense loss, a boy lends his companion a prosthetic arm for the day.
A secluded beach location, the perfect partner, the most exclusive Hotel: It is the life of your dreams. Join an eerie trip into the luxurious world of unfulfilled dreams, nostalgia, desire and catch a unique glimpse through the polished fassades of the reality distorting imagery of social media.
A competition of animated music videos from around the world, created in the last two years. In the first block you’ll see a clip about a cell phone experiencing the hardships of ordinary people, and one about the love between a vegan protester and a hotdog stand worker. The section presents diversity in animation and music. Look forward to an eclectic ode to cats, and a clip that shows what happens when you drive with eyes closed.
A silhouette lives her last moments on the cold paving stones of Brussels. Just before returning to the earth, his mind wanders in a fantasized and distorted universe that mixes Burkina Faso and Belgium.
Somewhere in a secret fold of the world, a girl-plant inhabited by joyful thoughts draws from the dark cave of her heart whimsical little pink horses animated by a childlike and pure joy. When her flying eyes meet an erupting volcano, their tears adorn her body with the joy of the moment.
This film is a glitter storm of pleasant and strange visual images and electronic sounds on the theme of electricity, which is the driving force of modern civilization.
I’m missing you on a summer night.
Music animation for the song "Be Gone” by electronicore band KNIVESRAIN. By exploring the possibilities of combining AI-generated content with hand-drawn 2D animation, it tells a story of a mobile phone that experiences the plight of modern people in a serendipitous epiphany, learning what it means to be human between life and death.
First, the growth seems unlimited, we expand. Then a peak comes. Then we break apart and vanish and again and again. It is the game of life.
Mathieu is weighed down by many questions which put him in a heavy state. But as he gives in to his sadness, the rain becomes tears and his tears become rain. He becomes one with his sadness. It's his time to dance, and the tears accompany him.
The fabric of reality is as thin as the invisible layer of cat fur that lies on top of every cat owner's house's floor. When it is inevitably disturbed, reality breaks in response. The supremacy of cats reigns us all, across space and time. Praise be to the cats.
The protagonist takes a ride through his VR glasses, ending up in a mess of various layers of (virtual) realities and fragments of vague memories. Music video for the song "Driving With My Eyes Closed" by Zouj feat. Sahareya.
Human beings are pipes, with meat around them. Fill them up and watch, they always empty.
A Hot Dog stand worker falls in love with a vegan protester.
We grow up together, live together, know each other. Only our siblings know the deepest secrets we are hiding inside.
Mariupol. A Hundred Nights tells us a story of a little girl, who wakes up on February 24th because of the air alert and tries to find someone living in the burning city. The main character is based on the story of Alice, a 4 year girl, who stayed in the blocked Mariupol during that time.
A selection of films that just missed the cut for the main competition. The first block of Short Films from Around the World will feature a film about a scientist who discovered the secret of immortality, and a story about how to deal with a pet’s death. Batman in love, a man in a banana peel, the smell of beets, and a flock of herons - that's what this first block is all about.
A scientist discovers the key to immortality - by means of a special vegetable: beetroot! Those who surround themselves with its scent will live forever. Through the excessive use of the beet scent, an impenetrable magenta atmosphere soon envelops the entire planet. Immortality spreads like a virus: death is now not only avoidable, but impossible.
A woman is stuck in a world of stains, spots and repetitive thoughts.
Death of a beloved pet is a difficult thing to deal with, and even though we try to prepare for it, it always seems to come too soon.
It's not so easy to be a hero. But you, Pentola, you are my superhero.
While trying to purchase a key that promises escape from his dreary outside world and free his mind, the character loses touch with his outer world bit by bit and diffuses with a TV program.
A dream or a reality of a young girl?
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Two very old friends wait for each other outside a coffee shop. The longer they wait, the more annoyed they get, causing old resentments to play on their minds.
A man crawls out of a banana and explains how he found himself in that fruit. Meanwhile a fish is contemplating her own beauty. These two stories are observed and disected and cause a reaction that cracks the reality the observer is in.
Among the tall buildings of the city, the lonely guard hides a beautiful field that no one knows, and meets an egret there; but the expansion of the city never stops, one day the field is destroyed, the egret escapes without a trace, he begin to see mysterious illusions…
The best animated short films from around the world compete for the Anča Award. The second international competition block presents a story about slimy creatures that have to learn to share their juice, and a story about foxes that want to cheer up their queen. Long nails, beautiful figures, caves, and football also get a look in. The section contains films from both professionals and students.
Kind of an illegal sleepover, a clumsy burglary, two best friends and sharp nails.
Three masters of football... They can perform wonders during the match and score impossible goals... But what happens in their heads when they are about to take penalty kicks?
Stepping into a cave, the sight fluctuates by the firelight. Left to right, top to bottom. The same goes for the screen in front of you. It is a borderless tunnel, presenting domestication and desire.
In the hopes of seeing their queen smile again, a group of foxes rummage through the city's trash, searching for all the love letters that were never sent.
A Child and its day. A conquest before breakfast, a clueless goat next to the house, a couple of promising airplanes far up in the sky. Then things and events fall apart.
The woman and the man are in a room, a gecko sits in a terrarium, several flies are circling a lamp. Gradually we find more and more dependencies and analogies between their activities and observed elements as the rhythm of their universes accelerates.
Meaty creatures must learn to share their juicy world with the pesky little bugs, before they run dry.
Thoughts ripple over the pages of a personal notebook, kept during a stay at different science labs in Zürich. They float from one to another, like a mind map of unfinished ideas.
Every day, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their vertiginous cold house, attached to a cliff, to go to the village on the ground, far away where they sell the ice they produce daily.
A selection of films from Studio Filmów Rysunkowych, a Polish animation studio with a rich history, located in Bielsko-Biała. The studio is famous not only for its films for children (e.g. Bolek and Lolek and Reksio), but also for its original films for adults. The section includes films about a rocket that can't take off, a funny reinterpretation of well-known fairy tales, as well as a seashell that will transport you to an idyllic past.
A ghostly figure of a man, like from a horror movie, wanders around a modern city. The character makes his way with clasped, veiny hands. In them, he hides a shell which takes him to the landscape of the idyllic past. The film is a metaphorical image of a man surrounded by civilization. The hustle and bustle, noise and crackling become unbearable
An amusing reinterpretation of well-known fairy tales, this time for adult viewers. We can spot there references to such fairy tales as ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ ‘Snow White,’ or ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ However, good old characters are presented in a brand new, often contemporary and amusing, interpretation.
The development of tehnology makes life easier. But what if technology develops so much that it starts thinking for itself and takes over people? This movie shows human flaws and weaknesses in a futuristic world of robots and machines.
The Curse is a cartoon telling a twisted tale of two creatures living in two seemingly unrelated realities. Their actions influence each other's worlds more than they could ever imagine.
People are surrounded by information from all sides. Is there a real world behind the avalanche of information? This film is a poetic reflection on the influence of the media on the recipient's consciousness.
The characters are coming to the square and preparing for the march. However, one person is missing. It comes late and is definitely different from the others.
The animation shows a wandering man with a donkey. The road leads past a statue of a beautiful woman, which turns out to be the man's undoing.
Allegorical story for adults. It depicts gathered people watching the launch of a rocket. Unfortunately, the rocket cannot take off. Will society be able to repair it and prepare it for flight?
Abstract animation emphasizes rhythm, movement and composition, strictly rejects narration, and offers a unique audiovisual experience. The following selection will offer an up-to-date overview of non-narrative and experimental animated films. For example, a film about two abstract energies falling in love, a film inspired by Joyce's Ulysses, and a playful documentary using real satellite images.
The Planet is being tyrannized by the human race, but nature begins a dialogue that gradually increases in intensity. Mini documentary using real satellite photographs available on Google Hearth.
& MORE draws from the architecture of the M+ museum of Hong Kong. Our film challenges the definition of a museum by looking at it as an object itself. Through a geometric play of shapes and forms in the M+ building, we explore what underpins our material world.
A physical dance with darkness and light - a dark choreography with film.
It’s feels like a vision of a pilgrimage gone south. Desperately looking for the gate in the forgotten lands where only military planes dare to fy.
This experiment in film sets the stage for a hitherto unseen magical life form. The film focuses on the non-obvious character of movement when transferred to an alien object thus endowed with the life derived from the movement’s true to life source.
The eleventh episode ”Sirens” of the novel Ulysses by Irish author James Joyce, is readen by the voice of a machine. In this film, I used photographs I took before 2020 to imitate the sounds and voices described in the text. In the end, the dance of the manipulated body with animation comforted the anxious body that had locked itself in a room.
This film expresses a symbiotic interplay between two cosmic energies contrasting the intersection of reality and self expression. A film without words. No musical instruments or camera used.
From the primitive touch to a ‘twist, press, click’—— Piles of images generate and decay into the soil, they are the real flesh, also the intangible memory.
The alienated objects collected in everyday life overlap inside each acrylic box and begin to move.
Employing the use of a copy machine to degrade images and video from her personal archive, the filmmaker takes viewers through fading recollections of the past. Memory is an unreliable reproduction - a copy of a copy.
Each image represents a 24-hour scan taken every day from March 21 to June 21. Through the frame of a window, the landscape depicts natural phenomena: the flowering of trees, changes in the weather and the extension of daylight until the summer solstice...
The world is over, have you noticed? You haven't? Because it’s the first thematic block of short animated films that focuses on this year's theme of utopia: exploring the nature of utopias in the context of our apocalyptic present. What is real, what is true, and what is “fake”? In this section you’ll see singing animals that feel an impending disaster, an upcycled story about a parsley girl, and one in which toys are limited by being toys. You can expect techno, an atomic bomb, and a lot of love. Part of the block is a pre-recorded interview with the programme director of Fest Anča Jakub Spevák and the festival director Ivana Sujová.
A lullaby before the great disaster. Two pigeons visit a zoo without animals, a snail measures his blood pressure at the doctor, in the CERN laboratory something has gone terribly wrong. Six moments from our age, like memories of the world we leave behind.
Deep Love has finally happened in Ukraine.
The hopeless struggle of figurines fighting against their toy condition.
A tender story about finding love even amid utter decay.
Too close but too far?! Two neighbours in the noise of building work, the hum of television sets and hushed up feelings.
This short animation is only made of sources which are expired and are freed from copyright on the Internet. The Parsley girl was caught by witches; she killed all the witches and got married to handsome man eventually.
Jerky but smiling characters from this short film will take the audience through this animated pageant inspired by a book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, written in 1651.
Best of Fest Anča 2022 is a collection of award-winning short animated films from the previous edition of the Fest Anča International Animation Festival. The jury of international guests awarded prizes in four categories. The section includes the best of short animation, student films, music videos and films for children.
Four polar rabbits discover a strange new creature and their lives will never be the same.
When the queen saw the face of the wandering musician, she had him thrown out of the city. Although the guards destroyed his musical instrument, he didn't lose his motivation to repair it.
The bigger sister - a girl of colossal size - is trapped in the sand in a desolate place. Unable to take care of herself, this burden falls on the shoulders of her resentful younger sister. Big sister, however, continues to grow and burrows deeper into the sand trap.
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Four friends at a surreal disco follow Elton John and Dua Lipa into a fantastical universe.
"Coucou Tchoutchou" is EXACTLY like our world. Just check it out.
An absurd adventure of three people who live in the same seaside town. Una lives a quiet life with her furry partner. The idyll is shattered when, for unknown reasons, she begins to feel a strange anxiety about her own leg.
Gwen is a young girl who just turned 11. When she discovers her sexuality, she catches her dog laughing.
It's a story of a wrestler and a coach, and their unusual relationship
Slaves and masters dominate the narrative of the faraway world of Ygam. Set around the lifespan of Terr, a minute human shaped Om slave, and pet, of the giant blue alien Draags. Escaping into the wilderness and with a device used for intellectual advancement of the Draags, Terr finds refuge and support from fellow Oms and using the learning tool, he finds that knowledge is power and then sets to use the new found knowledge to revolt against the Draag masters...
This year marks the 50th anniversary of this Czechoslovak-French coproduction, which received the Special Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. The film is brought to you in cooperation with the French Institute in Slovakia.
Adela Mede is a Slovak-Hungarian musician and singer whose work explores themes of home and spiritual growth. She draws on a wide scope of influences and incorporates elements of minimalism, contemporary vocal techniques, and Eastern European folklore into her work. Trilingual singing, field recordings, experimental electronics, and vocal processing intertwine to create intimate, powerful compositions.
Adela Mede studied popular music at Goldsmiths University. Her debut album Szabadság received positive reviews in The Wire, The Quietus, Dazed, Full Moon magazine and Foxy Digitalis. In 2022 she toured across Europe, sharing stages with Claire Rousay and Grand River, presenting her work in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Denmark.
Valeriia (CZ / UA)
Valeriia works on the intersection of moving image, scenography, light and sound. Her atmospheric site-specific productions immerse visitors into musical ideas of different artists, while also inviting collective interpretation.
Dead Janitor is the project of Slovakia (Košice) born producer and sound-bender Branislav Findrik. The project fuses hypnotic polyrhythms of steel cold electronics and explores notions hidden in the dark matter of colliding industrial percussions. Sound surgery is the phrase which perhaps best describes Dead Janitor’s approach to complex melodic structures interwoven within oscillating sub-bass and eerie three-dimensional artifacts.
Dead Janitor has shared stages with the likes of Mouse On Mars, M.E.S.H., Gazelle Twin, Wraetlic, Grischa Lichtenberger, Ekoplekz, etc. His latest project Stroke is a stroboscopic meditation in an environment of physical, almost tangible noise textures.
The best animated short films from around the world compete for the Anča Award. The third international competition block is about what it's like to wear make-up for the first time in public, and how many plastic bags it takes to pack one banana. You’ll meet characters confronting their inner demons, and those searching for family roots. The section contains films from both professionals and students.
For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.
If you are being bothered by intrusive thoughts, such as: How many plastic bags are optimal for packing one banana?; What ensures victory in the skeleton competition?; Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Or Should I shower with my socks on? Will I face any consequences?--then - that's great! “Headprickles” will give you an answer to at least one of these questions. The film consists of over a dozen animated enigrams connected by the motif of being trapped in a loop of absurdity. In visually colorful labyrinth of observations, the protagonists try to make sense of nonsense - or they stay mindlessly in it. "Headprickles" probably won’t change the world, will not cause a shock or a revolution, but - maybe – it will make audience’s heads a little itchy during the projection?
A spirited young woman persuades a hyena from London Zoo to take her place at a dinner dance held in her honour. Their plan requires a surprising amount of artistry and violence. Based on a story by artist Leonora Carrington, Elizabeth Hobbs celebrates her startling tale with paint and collage.
"The Mental Athlete" is Wednesday's new mental care project for everyone stuck at their home or office or home office. It is another series of work that deals with mental health. "The Mental Athlete" is based on a mixture of her personal experiences. It illustrates the relationship between mental health and cleaning and how exercise boosts the brain and improves mental health. A clean home and healthy body are the evidence of a state of mind.
Elodie tries to find out more about her family’s Armenian origins. She interviews her father, her uncle, her great aunt, and discovers a harsh history where violence and the inability to express love are passed down from generation to generation.
Without a nail or any other thing to hammer in you can not fail, but can not succeed neither. This digital performance circles around my fear of failing while at the same time having huge expectations.
After losing his fiancée and his good looks in a freak accident, Clyde must confront his inner demon.
Bukhansan Mountain grows in an earthquake in a normal daily life. Little by little, as fine cracks appear on the wall that divided the world of fantasy and reality, someone begins to notice the existence of an invisible world.
A selection of films that just missed the cut for the main competition. The second block of Short Films from Around the World will be about an adventurous mission to an eccentric island full of hermits, and the portrayal of women in cinematography. The selection includes an intimate bus journey, a nightmare about Siamese twins, and a nostalgic reminiscence of a time when television broadcasts ended shortly before midnight.
While slugs wander across the kitchen floor, Noémie draws up her self-portrait, shifting and fragmented, on the edge between the intimate and the hubbub of the world.
Ambient piece ZEN for TV is a nostalgic reminiscence of the times when a TV broadcast could end for the day before our eyes. TV used to finish the transmission a few minutes after midnight. Then the screen turned black and white, filled with noise. With a little bit of imagination, in that noise one could see stone zen gardens, patiently raked by a silent monk. Gazing at the end of the TV programme was some sort of electronic meditation of the late 80s. The animated music video helps to grasp the concept of it.
In an old building, lost in the middle of the swamp, live two strange women, Siamese twins by one leg. At night, the Flayed has terrifying nightmares in which she sees her sister's flesh covering her own body...
Garisani - meaning: Perception to judge things. The newborn baby god goes around the underworld and starts a journey to escape from his destiny.
Faces, bodies and actions are juxtaposed endlessly. Fragmented pieces of the woman come together and form the volume of what has been her image in the history of cinema; one marked by the routinary domination and exploitation of her body. A short film homage to Laura Mulvey and her contributions to feminist film theory.
The short-film depicts the moment when two strangers’ lives entangle for a brief second when their eyes meet.
Emotional wander. Emotions reflected in space and music. Music translated into colors, rhythm into editing. EO DE ME is an experimental visualization of music inspired by human changes in emotions.
On her way back from a heroic mission, Cassi gets stranded on a mysterious island. She meets an eccentric hermit, and they set off to find her a new boat. The erratic depths of the island force Cassi to reevaluate her quest, while the hermit must face someone from his past.
Yuku, a little mouse, lives with her family in the underground depths of an old castle. She spends most of her time with her grandmother, who tells her various legends and mysterious stories, through which she teaches her wisdom and lessons. As her grandmother begins to fade and prepares for her final journey, Yuku finds in one of her books a remarkable story about a Himalayan flower that is able to bring eternal light. Yuku decides to leave the walls of her home for the first time, embark on an adventurous journey and bring the flower to her grandmother. Her journey is long and full of obstacles. However, thanks to her ukulele and songs, Yuku makes many friends who will help her along the way.
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