AnimatekaPRO
4.–8. december
Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana, Slomškova 18
AnimatekaPRO is a festival platform enabling us to learn about the latest in the world of auteur animated cinema through a series of talks, debates, presentations and Q&As. The event includes the AnimatekaPRO Pitch for producers and animators from ex-Yugoslav countries to pitch their projects in development. An international panel of judges will award the best project with a chance to participate in the CEE Animation Pitching 2019 event at the Anifilm festival in Trebon.
Organised in exclusive partnership with CEE Animation and in collaboration with the Slovenian Animated Film Association, Motovila (CED Slovenia), CED Portugal and Bunker.
TUESDAY, 4. DECEMBER
09:00 AnimatekaPRO Pitch
10:45 Regional works in progress
Chintis Lundgren, Draško Ivezić (Adriatic Animation): Manivald and the Absinthe Rabbits (animated series in development)
11:00 Producer in Person
Paul Young is a co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, an IFTA winner and Oscar ® and Bafta nominee. He produced the animated features The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and The Breadwinner. Paul also produced two seasons of Puffin Rock, an original TV series which has been dubbed into over 25 languages. Paul is Chairman of Animation Ireland, the representative body for animation studios in Ireland as well as an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year finalist. 2018 was the inaugural year of Kilkenny Animated, a festival of visual storytelling co-founded by Paul to showcase the talents and profiles of world-renowned illustrators, designers, animators and cartoonists.
In collaboration with CEE Animation Workshop.
12:15 Masterclass
The director Anja Kofmel and the producer Siniša Juričić (Nukleus film) will speak about the complications and challenges faced when working on the animated documentary Chris the Swiss, a co-production of Switzerland and Croatia. As all animated sequences were made in Zagreb, the film’s exploration of the dark side of the Croatian war of independence led to an ideological conflict with the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.
14:30 AnimatekaPRO Pitch award winner announcement
14:45 Masterclass
Nuno Bernardo
Multiple Digital Platform Storytelling
The masterclass by Nuno Bernardo (BeActive), an acclaimed Portuguese-based expert on the digital landscape and multiple platform storytelling, is open to all interested individuals across the industry. The event is held as part of CEE Animation Workshop in collaboration with Creative Europe Desks Slovenia and Portugal.
The event will be in English and is open to a limited number of attendees. Registration is required by 3 December at info@ced-slovenia.eu.
WEDNESDAY, 5. DECEMBER
10:00 Breakfast with authors
11:30 Masterclass
Uri Kranot (ANIDOX)
Anidox VR – “Based on a true experience!”
Animation in Virtual Reality has proven to add high artistic value to the medium. Narrative driven or abstract, interactive or observative, the range of what could be defined as “documentary” is fairly wide: we would like to call them “based on a true experience”, rather than “based on a true story”. ANIDOX:LAB has been home to the development and production of animated documentaries for the past five years, supporting both short and long formats. As of this year the lab also focuses on storytelling in virtual reality. In this workshop we will showcase the latest works by the lab and case studies on Nothing Happens, a virtual reality installation presented at Animateka 2018, and Songbird, a new VR project commissioned by the Guardian.
12:30 Masterclass
Michael Frei and Mario von Rickenbach will talk about their collaborations as a filmmaker-gamemaker duo creating interactive animations. Why would you want to make an animation interactive? They will give insights into their working methods by showing the process behind projects like Plug & Play or KIDS.
13:30 Panel: Animation in Virtual Reality
With authors and experts: Manu Weiss, Marc Bertrand, Uri Kranot, Michael Frei, Mario von Rickenbach, Marko Cafnik, Mitja Klodič
THURSDAY, 6. DECEMBER
10:00 Breakfast with authors
11:30 Panel: Animation in Hungary
Hungary is the visiting country at the 15th edition of the Animateka festival. The history and the current state of animation in Hungary will be discussed with film historian and curator of the 'Hungary Visiting' animation retrospective, Anna Ida Orosz, and other guests from Hungary.
In collaboration with the Balassi Institute.
12:45 In Person
Luca Tóth
Luca Toth is a Hungarian animation director, born in 1989. She studied at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. After recieving her BA diploma she went on studying at the Royal College of Art for her Master's degree. Her graduation film The Age of Curious won the Jury Distinction Prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
After studying and working in the UK, Luca moved back to Budapest, where she made her first independent short film Superbia, which premiered at the Critics’ Week in Cannes 2016.
13:30 Case Study Presentation
The “Polish Quality” project is aimed at a worldwide presentation of Polish artists and service providers working in animation industry, and their contribution to international film production, especially stop motion animation. Besides having a strong focus on promoting animators, the program showcases artistic talent such as: character and set designers, puppet makers, set builders and prop makers, not just in the sphere of animation, but also for live action sets and special effects, as well as crew members specialising in animation and miniature capture or service providers specialising in sound design and sound and image post production.
FRIDAY, 7. DECEMBER
10:00 Breakfast with authors
11:30 Regional works in progress
Milanka Fabjančič, Kolja Saksida (Zvviks Animation): Liliana (Animated Short Film in Production)
Leon Vidmar, Kolja Saksida (Zvviks Animation): Of Unwanted Things and People (Animated Feature Film in Production)
12:30 Masterclass
Martina Scarpelli and Lana Tankosa Nikolić (Late Love Production)
The making of Egg
13:15 Masterclass
Jean Baptiste Garnero (CNC)
Alexandre Alexeïeff, Claire Parker: Shadow Tamers
The virtuosity of the film A Night on Bald Mountain (1934) is not only due to the artistic genius of its authors but also to the poetry born of the instrument specially designed.
The filmmakers Alexandre Alexeïeff (1906-1981) and Claire Parker (1906-1981) have indeed invented a new tool, the pinscreen, where the light on the pins offers the range of desired gradations of gray and on which they have made some major films of animation.
For the past fifteen years, Jean-Baptiste Garnero has been working to collect and present collections that are entrusted or belong to the CNC. He has therefore overseen several projects designed to reassert the value of animation production and its history in France and abroad through cultural organisations such as festivals, cinematheques, museums, professional schools and UNESCO.
He is currently participating in putting the last pinscreen made by Alexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker back into production, so it can be used again to make films in France.
SATURDAY, 8. DECEMBER
10:00 Breakfast with authors
11:30 In Person
Réka Bucsi (1988) is an independent animation filmmaker from Hungary. She earned her BFA and MFA at the animation department of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest. Her graduation film Symphony no. 42 was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2014. Her films were screened in official shorts competition programmes at Berlinale, SXSW, Sundance, Annecy, and won over 50 international awards. In 2013/2014 she attended Animation Sans Frontiéres (ASF), a European animation production workshop. She was an artist in residence at the Open Workshop in Viborg, Denmark, and at Q21 in Vienna, Austria. Réka’s debut short film LOVE was nominated for best short film at the European Film Awards 2017. Her new short film Solar Walk premiered at the Berlinale 2018, and won the Audi Short Film Award. Réka is represented as a director by Passion Pictures.
A retrospective of films by Réka Bucsi screens on Sunday, 9 December, at 21:00 in the Slovenian Cinematheque.
12:15 Panel: Festivals and Politics
With international animated film festival programmers and producers: Gerben Schermer, Chris Robinson, Yiorgos Tsangaris, Joni Männistö, Tamás Patrovits, Thomas Renoldner, Igor Prassel
13:30 In Person
Kaspar Jancis (1975) is a composer, artist, screenwriter and a director. Already in childhood he was interested in making comic books and writing stories with illustrations. His first moving images appeared on corners of his school books. He made his first animations while studying at the Tallinn Pedagogical University. Afterwards he enrolled in the Turku Art and Media School in Finland to study animation under Priit Pärn. His debut was Romanss (1999), followed by Weitzenberg Street (2003), Frank and Wendy (2005), Marathon (2006), Crocodile (2009), Villa Antropoff (co-dir. Vladimir Leschiov) and Piano (2015).
Captain Morten and the Spider Queen is his debut animated feature.
14:30 Masterclass
Marc Bertrand (NFB)
Space – The Final Frontier
Since the advent of new interactive media, creators must constantly re-evaluate the space they want to offer viewers in their work. From theatre to games, traditional animation, stereoscopy, VR, AR and multimedia installations, the questions remain the same; What is the experience offered by medium that one wishes to employ? What space or role does the author wish to offer in his work to the user? What will remain imprinted in the spectator? As a producer for over twenty years at the NFB, these are the questions I still ask myself for each of my productions. The answers are becoming more complex.
Marc Bertrand joined the French Animation Studio as a producer in 1998 and has since produced more than 100 films, including such notable successes as the award-winning series Science Please! (2001), and Noël Noël (2003) by Nicola Lemay. Bertrand’s interest in new technology has led him to become involved in working on 3D films. In 2008, he coproduced Facing Champlain: A Work in 3 Dimensions, directed by Jean-François Pouliot, and produced Private Eyes, a new 3D film by Nicola Lemay.
Among his other productions are acclaimed films such as Imprints (2004) by Jacques Drouin, Sunday (2011) by Patrick Doyon, which earned an Oscar® nomination, and works by Theodore Ushev, includingLipsett Diaries (2010), winner of a Genie for Best Animated Short and a Special Mention at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
In 2013, Marc became an AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences) member and completed the co-production Hollow Land (Michèle and Uri Kranot) and Gloria Victoria (T. Ushev), which won the FIPRESCI award in Annecy 2013.
In 2014, it was another of Marc’s production, No fish where to go, that received the same honor. In 2016, his production of Théodore Ushev’s Vaysha the Blind won both the Jury Prize and de Children Jury prize in Annecy and in 2017 the film was nominated for an Oscar® in the Short Animated film category.
