Films in the Main Competition Programme, the European Young Talents Programme The Elephant in Competition programme are once again competing for prizes. They will receive four awards: the Jury Grand Prix Young Talent Award, presented jointly by the University of Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design and University of Nova Gorica School of Arts, the Children Jury Award and the ;DSAF (Slovene Animated Film Association) Audience Award.

In addition to the competition, there is also the well-known Best of the World programme, and in cooperation with the Kinotrip festival, we are presenting the Kinotrip’s Best of the World for the fourth year in a row. As student films were submitted in biggest numbers again this year, we added the Student Panorama to the traditional Central and Eastern Europe panoramas. A special section, which we present again, is CEE Animation Talents 2021, which we are preparing in cooperation with our partner CEE Animation, as well as the CEE Animation Festival Network section: Bikes, Beasts and Washing Machines: Cyclists, animal fights and washing machines; a collection of short animations from the Central and Eastern European region, curated by Mihai Mitrică (artistic director of Animest Festival) as part of the CEE Animation Festivals Network’s joint activities.

For many years, we have been paying special attention to everything new in the field of animated documentaries. In the Animated Documentaries section, there will be three animated documentary programmes this year, which touch upon various socio-political topics. This year's feature films will also deal with similar topics. Among them is Aurel’s feature film Josep, which focuses on the time of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain and received the César Award for Best Animated Film this year. There is also the extremely topical animated story My Sunny Maad by ichaela Pavlátová. The film received the grand jury award at the Annecy Film Festival and is based on the novel Freshta by Petra Procházková, an extraordinary and deeply humanistic book in which the author, thanks to her own personal experience, has managed to capture with an exceptional empathy the efforts of Afghan women to emancipate in the post-Taliban era.

My Sunny Maad

The program also includes the animated documentary My Favorite War by Ilza Burkovska - Jacobsen, Based on the director’s childhood memories from growing up in Cold War Soviet Latvia, a film which is, in its core, an anti-war film, emphasizing the importance of an individual’s freedom being a democratic society’s fundamental right. There is also a wonderful animated story The Crossing by director Florence Miailhe, a story about a sister and a brother who have to cross an entire continent obsessed with hunting down migrants, and to go through many trials, both real and surreal, in order to discover a New World, free at last.

The Crossing

This year’s program also includes the feature film The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks by Andrej Hržanovski, the two greatest creations of the Russian genius: the short story "The Nose" by Nikolai Gogol, and the opera “The Nose” that the composer Dmitri Shostakovich made Gogol’s story into in 1930.

This year’s Animateka also features a special focus on female creators with the section HerStory. The presented programme consists of four parts, bound by the concept of “HerStory”. Part one Got to Speak Up explores the films of a clear political stand-point that combine feminist awarness with raw, loud, and intentionally unpleasant style. The programme Got to (Re)Create presents the works of women storytellers who reverse and reinterpret conventional narratives reinforcing patriarchal world order with the means of perverse appeal and ironic perspective shifts. Got to Be Real is focused on self-exploration of identities and seemingly mundane, daily situations experienced by women of any color or sexual orientation. Eventually in the Got to Do My Research part we follow experimental works that test the limits of animated medium.

As Animateka is celebrating its 18th anniversary this year, we will appropriately celebrate its coming of age with a special program Adults only, full of lovers, provocative imagination and physicality just before midnight on Saturday.

As every year, Animateka brings animations for youth and for the youngest as part of the Elephant Family Program. In addition to the three sets of the The Elephant in Competition, but this time you will also have a special program Green Elephant, a selection of short animated films that address current ecological and nature conservation topics. The program also includes two feature films for the youngest, the first film being Even Mice Belong in Heaven by Denisa Grimmová and Jan Bubeníček in which a feisty little mouse and a shy young fox cub unwittingly find themselves in animal heaven. In this strange environment, they will have to put aside their natural instincts and work together to succeed on their journey through this new world. The film talks about hope, a quest for love and courage, and about overcoming prejudices and old pains.

Animateka will also feature the award-winning feature film Wolfwalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, which takes us to a time of superstition and magic, where a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. This is the third film of the Irish saga by Moore, whom we know for his films The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014). Wolfwalkers was nominated for an Oscar for animated feature film.

Wolfwalkers 

A very special selection of short films will also be shown at the opening of the festival, which we are preparing together with this year's main jury.

More detailed information about this year's program, the jury and more can be found on our website: https://www.animateka.si The entire program of this year's AnimatekePRO and the accompanying program will soon be revealed.

Here is also this year's trailer of the festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stR0YcLM8zI