Why do we love the city? What delights, excites and excites us about urban life? Or, on the contrary, what we don’t like, suffocates us, tires us, limits us? These are some of the questions that the theme of the 19th edition of the Animest Festival proposes for the public to explore, through a vast program of screenings, special events, meetings with guests from around the world and programs dedicated to artists.
After the last edition registered over 15,000 spectators in front of the screens, the International Animation Film Festival returns to the big screens in Bucharest between October 4 – 13. Starting today, Animest.19: Ten Stops and Full Trip subscriptions can be purchased on the Eventbook platform. Full Trip Pass subscriptions, which guarantee a complete festival experience, ensuring unlimited access to all screenings, concerts and special events in the edition’s program, are available in a limited number of 50. Subscription details: https://bit.ly/AbonamenteAnimest19
It is less than two decades since official statistics say that more people live in urban areas than in rural areas. So how can the lifestyle of the majority of Earth’s inhabitants be best described? Skyscrapers, lots of asphalt, stress, speed, artificial lights and huge billboards, crowds, tension, cultural diversity and much more. Urban frames is the framework that the organizers propose to the animated film-loving public to rediscover the city, to reconnect with its vibrancy and rhythm, and to celebrate the community of which they are a part. “The Animest edition with number 19 will be surprising through the events displayed throughout the festival, but also through the films and guests who will be present in Bucharest in October. A dense edition, with many screenings and guests from all over the world. We have focused our selection on the city and the community, with all the advantages, subtleties, joys and shortcomings that this entails, and the selection of films tries to reflect a little bit of everything, so that every viewer will discover something that represents them or to challenge him either visually or narratively. There will be special nocturnal events and concerts, also designed in line with the theme of the edition.”, said Mihai Mitrică, the director of the Festival.
Urban frames challenge you to look at the city from a new perspective
Street Spirit (Fade Out), Urban Discipline, Overpass Graffiti, There Goes the Neighborhood and Street Fighting Man are the songs that make up the urban playlist of Animest.19 and that name the 5 thematic short films curated by the director and selector of the festival, Mihai Mitrică, together with the French journalist and film historian Alexis Hunot, invited to Bucharest again this year.
In all the molds of the thematic section, viewers will travel through the most diverse urban scenarios, some of which are certainly familiar. The classic Boomsville (dir. Yvonne Mallete, 1968) ironically depicts the trajectory from a small settlement to the metropolis and the challenges that come with urbanization, proving that some perspectives remain universally valid, regardless of the historical period in which we find ourselves. The Argentinian short film The employment/El Empleo (dir. Santiago Bou Grasso, Patricio Plaza), the winner of the Animest Trophy in 2008, which returns to the big screens in Bucharest on this occasion, offers another familiar image, but which aims at the challenges of working in the urban environment. The farewell is also the presence in the thematic section of the short film Deep Love (dir. Mykyta Lyskov, 2019), a multi-awarded Ukrainian production in international festivals. Urban perspectives will also take the audience to London, behind the scenes of a very popular urban activity, skateboarding, authentically documented in The Skatebook (dir. Sofia Negri, 2022), to Barcelona where a couple faces a domestic problem and urban alike: an infested apartment – Cucarachas (dir. Marc Riba, Anna Solanas, 2017) or in Stuttgart where drivers fight the chaos of traffic through unconventional methods – Benztown (dir. Gottfried Mentor, 2021). Skyscraper/Neboder (dir. Joško Marušić, 1981) successfully complements the urban frames proposed by the festival, through the vertical exploration of life lived in a skyscraper.
“Qn the thematic section we aimed to show how the animation describes what it means to live in an urban context. From Canada to Taiwan, Colombia or Ukraine, we go around the world and observe the differences and similarities of urban life as depicted in animated films. And nowadays animation is not just what we see on screens, it is itself a living part of urban life – videomapping is frequently used in various festivities, and the city sometimes gives animation filmmakers the perfect excuse to go out from the studio and create stories using street art, as seen in Urban Sphinx (dir. Maria Lorenzo), Bird Shit (dir. Caleb Wood) or Muto (dir. BLU)“, said Alexis Hunot.
Diverse and different, part of the same community
Animest is, by definition, a festival “born and raised” in the city, an urban event that brings together the consumers and creators of animated film, which year after year challenges the community to meet at the intersection of the comfort zone and the original and new. After last year the festival marked its coming of age with a celebration of awareness of the body and movement or dance in real or imaginary space, in 2024 the festival carefully revisits the city of which its identity is a part and proposes the community to explore it, to- rediscover him, listen to him more carefully and embrace what everyone loves and hates about him.
“I’ve always felt that Animest stands for ‘movement’, and that it offers many opportunities for all sorts of people to meet. That’s why the presence of many people in the illustration was important to me, and the way they intersect suggests the very internal dynamics during the festival. The street intersection illustrated in the poster is an imaginary one – it refers to different cities, but at the same time it is a mixture of my own memories. Crosswalks also form a frame in this urban sequence, echoing the issue’s theme. It was important for the illustration to draw the eye to a simple, strong shape first, so that you can explore all the other interesting details later, and the aesthetic of bright neon lights that abound in a city makes this easy.“, said Tuan Nini, the artist invited to illustrate the poster of the 19th edition.
