04/10/2019 - The Bucharest-based gathering will kick off tonight with Marona’s Fantastic Voyage by Anca Damian

The Animest International Animation Film Festival, the most popular film festival in Bucharest, may be poised to become even more popular, as the organisers have prepared a record-breaking 14^th edition (4-13 October), with “more” certainly serving as the keyword for this iteration. After the gala tonight, featuring Anca Damian’s Marona’s Fantastic Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the audience will have access, over the next ten days, to more films, more guests, more venues, more competitions and more events than they did at the previous editions.

Several juries will evaluate the movies in as many as six competitions. To the traditional Feature, Short Film, Student Film, Romanian Shorts and Music Video Competitions, this year, the festival is adding the VR Competition, officially recognising the new technology as a future staple of animation. The event also has a seventh competitive section, Minimest, part of a rich sidebar dedicated to children’s animations.

The five features taking part in the main competition are Gints Zilbalodis' Away [+see also:
film review
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interview: Gints Zilbalodis
film profile] (Latvia), Fermín Muguruza's Black Is Beltza [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Spain), Salvador Simó's Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: GoCritic! Interview: José L…
film profile] (Spain), Ralf Kukula and Matthias Bruhn's Fritzi: a Revolutionary Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Germany/Luxembourg/Belgium/Czech Republic), and Félix Dufour-Laperrière's Ville Neuve (Canada). Many other features – for example, Carlos Fernández de Vigo's Memoirs of a Man in Pajamas [+see also:
trailer
interview: Carlos Fernández de Vigo
film profile] (Spain), Jean-François Laguionie and Xavier Picard's The Prince's Voyage [+see also:
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film profile] (France), Michel Ocelot's Dilili in Paris [+see also:
film review
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film profile] (France/Belgium/Germany), and Denis Do's Funan [+see also:
film review
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interview: Denis Do
film profile] (France/Belgium/Luxembourg/Cambodia) – will be screened out of competition.

Every year, Animest proposes one main sidebar, and this year, festival director Mihai Mitrică has announced it as “Yesterday Will Be Tomorrow”. The section gathers together dozens of animations, both old and new, exploring future-related or science-fiction topics. Another strand that may prove popular with older audiences is Erotic Animation.

At the 14th edition, the guest country is Estonia, and accordingly, Animest is showing a plethora of Estonian features and shorts, also offering special programmes dedicated to well-known Estonian animators, such as Priit and Olga Pärn, Chintis Lundgren and Kaspar Jancis. Also, the Estonian Academy of Arts is this edition’s guest animation school, and various programmes will explore the creations by the newest talents the country has to offer.

Since 2017, Animest has been an Oscar-qualifying film festival, meaning that the winner of the Short Film Competition automatically becomes eligible for the Best Animated Short category of the Academy Awards.