Increasingly innovative and stylistically complex, the 12 short films included in the Romanian Competition at the 19th edition of Animest paint an overall urban picture of contemporary domestic animation.
Dirty Paradise (dir. Alina Gheorghe)
The short films in this year’s selection are a mix of productions signed by students at the beginning of their journey in this field and films created by artists already established in animation. Between October 4 and 13, the films from the Romanian Competition will compete for the section trophy, worth 5,000 lei, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute.
This year, 32 films entered the Romanian Animest Competition, a very large number that demonstrates the continuous development of this field, as a result of the constant support of the last 19 years. Animest’s impact on the animation industry in Romania can be seen directly on the big screens in this year’s selection, full of brave approaches and original stories that focus mostly on relationships and relating – as a couple, in the family or in the community.
Alina Gheorghe returns to the Romanian Animest Competition with a new school film, Dirty Paradise, a metaphor about rejecting one’s self and idealizing perfection. Dirty Paradise was one of the participating projects last year within the Sisterhood of Young Animation Auteurs (SYAA), Animest’s intensive study program dedicated to female filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe, where it received support from several industry specialists at the stage of development. Alina conquered the Animest audience again in 2022 with the extremely intimate and sensitive story of Glass Fingers, selected last year also in the Annecy student competition, the most important international animation festival.
A bold return to the Romanian Competition is also Tudor Om, whose new animation, TIBI, directed with Serghei Chiviriga and dedicated to the youngest viewers, is a completely different story from the one with which he was also part of the international competition last year, The Boy and the Crow.
Also with a new and original metaphor comes The Core, the short film by the urban artist Robert OBERT, about a common consciousness in which the feminine and masculine energy intertwine to create a single core in symbiosis. Robert OBERT is the creator of the comic universe “The Urban Prophecy”, from which derives many other street works that he signs.
The section also includes the productions of two domestic directors who no longer live in Romania, but continue to create independent animation. Thus, the audience will discover what happens when one of the inhabitants of a fictional village in the sky causes the end of the world in Lavinia Petrache’s delicate Fracti, but also how much myth or truth is hidden in the technique of counting to ten to calm yourself down , in the playful Count to Ten directed by Andreia Dobrotă.
Pitch, please!, record entries for the animation workshop
On September 10, registrations for Pitch, please!, the animation workshop that has been actively supporting the development of animated projects in Romania and the Republic of Moldova for 5 years, ended. This year, 20 directors and producers registered their projects, being a record number for the 6 editions of the program, a fact that reconfirms the importance and necessity of supporting animation film creators.
All projects selected in the final stage will receive feedback and recommendations from the jury, consisting of three members, screenwriters, directors or international producers with extensive experience in the field of animation, and the best of them are eligible to win one or more of the prizes up for grabs for the 2024 edition. The list of finalists will be published next week on the Animest website.
