Oscar and Golden Globe winners, David Lynch’s animated films, Marcel Łoziński’s student short films, the best Japanese animations, an award for Koji Yamamura, a series of industry events, a special children’s program, and a new addition: a feature-length animation competition. That’s a brief preview of the 32nd edition of the Etiuda&Anima International Film Festival. And it’s all happening in Kraków, October 14–19.
Last year’s decision to move the festival to October turned out to be a huge success, so this year, Etiuda&Anima will once again take place in early fall at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, the Agrafka and Paradox movie theaters, Multilab, and Apteka Designu.
Three contests, one of which is brand-new
This year, over 1,800 short fiction and documentary films from film and art schools were submitted to the ETIUDA competition, from which the selection committee chose 25 films. The ANIMA competition will feature 55 short animated films, selected from nearly 840 submissions. In addition to European productions, the competition lineup will feature films from the Americas, the Far East, as well as from countries not often seen on movie screens, such as Egypt, India, and Iran.
Exactly 20 years after the ANIMA competition was established, the festival is launching another competition, this time dedicated to feature-length animated films longer than 60 minutes: ANIMA 60’+. The lineup for the first edition of this competition will be truly stellar, as this competition section will feature films that won Oscars last season, a Golden Globe (“Flow,” dir. Gints Zilbalodis), and the Annecy Festival Jury Prize (“Chao,” dir. Yasuhiro Aoki), as well as the latest works by well-known and acclaimed filmmakers: “The Snail’s Diary” by Adam Elliot, “A Wonderful Life” by Sylvain Chomet, and “The Boat in the Garden” by Jean-François Laguionie.
Outstanding guests, unforgettable artists
Unlike streaming platforms, the festival offers the opportunity to meet amazing artists in person, and there will be plenty of them this year.
This year’s annual award for an outstanding artist and educator who combines artistic practice with teaching will go to Japanese animator Koji Yamamura. The award ceremony will be accompanied by screenings of the laureate’s films and those of his students. Yamamura is also responsible for this year’s traditional “Top 10” festival selection: he has curated a list of the 10 best Japanese animated films. He will also lead a multi-day animation workshop, which will take place at the animated film studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
As part of the “Self-Portraits of Animation Artists” series , this year’s program will feature Serbian animator Lea Vidaković, renowned for her incredibly intricate puppet films. The profile of Simone Massi—an Italian creator of visually sophisticated animations and winner of the ANIMA competition—will be presented by musician and composer Stefano Sasso, who has collaborated with him for years. The “Self-Portrait” artists will also enrich the festival space by presenting exhibitions of their work: “Black Wall” and “Family Portrait.”
Another guest and jury member at the festival will be three-time Oscar-nominated director and producer Peter Lord, founder of the legendary British studio Aardman—the birthplace of such iconic stop-motion characters as Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. The masterclass, which explores the intersection of animated film and comics, will be led by animator, comic book author, producer, and founder of Yellow Tapir Films, Marcin Podolec, who will also serve on the jury. Another juror this year, Nuno Beato from Portugal, will present his feature-length debut, *My Grandfather’s Demons*, and lead a masterclass on the film’s production.
In the screenings under the banner “Europe in Animation,” representatives of European festivals will present a selection of films from their countries: Joni Männistö, director of the Finnish Turku Animated Film Festival, has prepared a screening of the best Finnish animated films, Radost Neykova from the Varna Animated Film Festival will present the best Bulgarian animations, and Fernando Garlito from the Monstra Animation Festival will introduce us to the best animated films by Portuguese students.
As part of the “Farewells” series, we will pay tribute to the work of three artists who have passed away in recent months: we will revisit the films of British animator Phil Mulloy, present little-known short animations directed by David Lynch, and showcase a unique treat—the student films created by the master of Polish documentary filmmaking, Marcel Łoziński, will surely be a highlight.
In addition, the program includes
The program will be complemented by “Green Etudes & Anima,” a block of environmentally themed animated films in which we present specially selected etudes and animations that explore our relationship with the natural environment and the mutual influence of culture, nature, and technology. Special screenings with audio description—designed for the visually impaired—are also planned, featuring, among others, the Latvian Oscar-winning hit “Flow.”
Once again, the festival will feature the awards gala of the Animation Section of the Polish Filmmakers Association, honoring the best films and filmmakers of 2024. Anyone who wants to meet the leading figures of the Polish animated film industry should attend Etiuda that evening.
Etiuda&Anima for Kids
A specially curated program of both short and feature-length films awaits our youngest viewers. The first block of short animated films, intended for children ages 6–10, will focus on themes of cooperation, friendship, neighborliness, mutual aid, and family and social relationships. Three wartime stories, aimed at children between the ages of 8 and 12, will make up the second block of short films. It will include the story of Wojtek, a bear who befriended soldiers and accompanied Anders’ Army on its march (“Corporal Wojtek”), as well as film adaptations of the well-known books “Asiunia” by Joanna Papuzińska and “Jutka’s Sleeplessness” by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala, the latter being a beautifully portrayed, moving story set in the Łódź ghetto.
Among the feature-length films, the youngest viewers will be able to learn about Frida Kahlo’s childhood (“Hola Frida”), a story about a teenage lead singer of a rock band who decides to lose a few kilos and get something off his chest (“Ben Doesn’t Have It Easy”), as well as the adventures of “The Boy at the Ends of the World,” which explores the bonds between siblings and the unifying power of shared challenges.
The children’s program will be complemented by animation workshops and an exhibition of watercolors by Bulgarian animator and illustrator Radostina Neykova, showcasing just how labor-intensive the production of an animated film is: we’ll see both hand-painted backgrounds and the numerous, successive phases of movement of the characters appearing in the film. The workshops, meanwhile, will take participants into a world that is almost completely unknown to today’s children—namely, the world of handwritten letters. It is precisely these traditionally written letters and the words they contain that will serve as the material from which the children will create their own original animated stories.
For the film industry: Creative Lab E&A
As part of the industry program under the Creative Lab E&A banner, a Talent Market will be held : an event aimed at animation creators, as well as students and graduates of art and film schools. It will consist of presentations by Polish and European animation studios, as well as a session of one-on-one meetings; a case studies zone featuring the team4set platform; and a VR Corner zone with a curated selection of animations utilizing virtual reality.
The Creative Lab will also feature book promotions for two titles: a monograph on the production realities of the Se-Ma-For studio (“The Social Worlds of the ‘Se-Ma-For’ Small Film Forms Studio in Łódź” by Ewa Ciszewska, Agata Hofelmajer-Roś, Michał Pabisia-Orzeszyna, and Szymon Szul) and a colorful account of journeys through animation festivals around the world by journalist Nancy Denney-Phelps (“On the Animation Trail: 20 Years of Animation Festival History”). Nancy will also lead a workshop on pitching animated films, teaching young filmmakers how to present their animated projects effectively and impressively.
However, there will be more workshops and seminars: designer and poster artist Kaja Renkas will lead a seminar titled “The Poster as an Interactive Medium Through the Use of Augmented Reality,” and Dr. Marek Bukowski will address the important topic of intellectual property law (“Copyright in Audiovisual Works”). There will also be screenwriting workshops led by Agnieszka Kruk. Meanwhile, musician and composer Nik Phelps—who has collaborated with Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and Frank Sinatra—will lead a masterclass titled “Synchronize or Sink: Navigating the Currents of Visual Storytelling,” dedicated to the topic of sound design for animated films. The sound aspect of filmmaking will also be the focus of Michał Korzeniowski’s workshop “Sound in Film,” organized in collaboration with the Kraków Technology Park – Multilab.
The festival will conclude with an awards gala on Saturday and a screening of selected award-winning films, and three full screenings of all the award-winning films are scheduled for Sunday afternoon and evening.
A detailed festival program is available at www.etiudaandanima.pl/program