ANIMATION

Under the Sign of Auctorial Creativity

The Zagreb festival of animated films has always been important for creative ’auteur’ works. Nowadays, as many western festivals are shifting their interest towards the market and commercial programs, the 30 years old Croatian festival is one of the rare big events that remained devoted to the promotion of animation as an artistic expression. This year, the selection committee received more than nine hundred and fifty films and that proves that Zagreb’s Animafest, in spite of the recent war in former Yugoslavia, is still a leading gathering of animators of the world. Well known masters as Bob Godfrey, Paul Driessen, Yury Norstein, Caroline Leaf, Jerzy Kucia and many, many others still eagerly come to Zagreb. There were a number of films marked out as possible Grand Prix winners in the opinion of the writer. (Michael Dudok de Wit actually won the Grand Prix for Father and Daughter). Another one was Tuning Instruments by Jerzy Kucia. The film Black soul by Haitian-Canadian director Martine Chartrand also stands out as a masterpiece too. Crime and Punishment by Piotr Dumala who, like his countryman Kucia, works for years and years alone at his projects, is also a remarkable achievement. There were a number of interesting newcomers at the Animafest. A big surprise came from Mexico, a country where animation is not very developed. Down to the Bone by debutante Rene Castillo is a hilarious story from the dark side of the life. The film Touched by an Angel by Beatrijs Hulskes is a poetic artistic confession of the filmmaker herself about her illness. Neighbours by Russian debutante Stepan Bityukov is a funny, quite surrealist visual tale on the life of a clerk, who gets taken by miraculous music. The Croatian film Every Day by Itself, Never Together by Goran Trbuljak is one of the most interesting Croatian films, although it didn’t get selected for the competition. One of the points that were brought to attention by Animafest was a fact that the centres of animation have been shifting towards the East. South Korea e. g. has entered seventy works for the selection and Seoul’s Centre for culture got the main prize given by the selection committee for the most successful entry by one producer. Iran and India also participated with many works. But it is not only that animation became livelier in these countries, where till recently it has been quite rare to see any creative animated film. It is more interesting that the animators from the East are bringing their own way of expression based on their tradition and culture.

Rada Šešić