This week, the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS) announced its decision to go virtual and published its full programme. The event, exceptionally renamed OnlineFestival.ITFS.de, will take place from 5-10 May and will consist of three main sections: OnlineFestival Free, OnlineFestival+ and OnlineFestival Pro.

OnlineFestival Free will offer free live-streamed content and will effectively be the digital counterpart to the traditional festival taking place annually in Schlossplatz. This section will include a mix of moderated interviews, live panels, the festival’s opening event on the Tuesday evening, the awards ceremony on the Sunday evening, and a number of shorts each day. Some parts of the programme, such as the curated Animated Music Video strand, are also available on this section’s playlist, free of charge.

Moreover, the section will host a free GameZone, enriched by a selection of gaming options and related tips for children and adults, as well as digital, educational games. It will also shine the spotlight on game academies, studios and the nominees for the 2020 Animated Games Award Germany. Lastly, several workshops and lectures will be available for live streaming.

Meanwhile, OnlineFestival+ will be a platform for all fans of animation, offering a selection of films from the competitive strands International Competition for Short Films, Young Animation, Tricks for Kids and Trickstar Nature, as well as the features chosen for the AniMovie competition and some of the best titles from the festival’s past editions.

Among the top highlights are the world premiere of Eduardo Rivero’s A Costume for Nicholas (Mexico) and the screening of the French-Luxembourgish co-production by Nicolas Blies and Stéphane Hueber-Blies Zero Impunity [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], alongside successful shorts such as Pascal Schebli’s The Beauty, Tomek Popakul’s Acid Rain, Collectif Illogic’s Maestro, Konstantin Bronzit’s He Can’t Live Without Cosmos, and Magnus Møller, Mette Tange and Peter Smith’s Tales from the Multiverse. In total, over 250 shorts and features will be available in this section. The one-off charge to access OnlineFestival+ is €9.99.

Finally, OnlineFestival Pro will be the event dedicated to industry professionals and can be visited at a price of €19.99. This section will provide access to a number of master classes, including one held by French cartoonist and animator Benjamin Renner (Ernest and Célestine [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Benjamin Renner, Vincent P…
scheda film]), in addition to professional talks and links to the Animation Production Days (APD), Germany's most important co-production and financing market for animation. In addition, OnlineFestival Pro will give industry decision makers the opportunity to access the Animated Video Market so that they can view most of the films submitted to this year's ITFS (around 1,900 animated flicks).

Speaking about the new digital event, artistic managing director Ulrich Wegenast said: “The new, digital format will be a brand-new, virtual experience for our guests and us alike. With many video statements and live interviews as well as talks and panels, we want to create a completely new kind of festival feeling. This and our exclusive programme of films, some of them previously unreleased, is what makes the OnlineFestival.ITFS.de, with its various sections, so special, and is what distinguishes it from the usual streaming platforms.”