13. 4. 2023

Animation Section: Playful, Funny, Informative, Sad and Cheerful – Animation from All Over the World Is Headed to Zlín

Fighting for the Golden Slipper for the Best Short Animation for Children at the 63rd Zlín Film Festival are 56 films from 23 countries of the world, including the Czech Republic. These animated films are very popular among both small and large audiences, and the festival dramaturges have promised everyone that they will again find their favorites this year. You can watch the trailer here.

As the old saying goes: We have a choice of flavors. From stop motion to 3D animation, from Canada to France to South Korea, from drama to witty. These include, for example, from the German Film Bilder Studio, an annual supplier of popular animated films for the youngest audiences. Director Julia Ocker has come up with new episodes of Animanimals, where she reveals how a T-Rex can play basketball and what happens when a cat prepares to cook. The Dutch stop animation film Hooba will tell us in a very funny way about what great fans of football our ancient ancestors were.

This year's competition is thematically very diverse and introduces small audiences to the world of cares and joys, as well as to the world of difficult human problems. We learn about the loss of childhood innocence in the moving story of the raven boy Corvine and the original Czech film Lights. Movies such as Bléh and Pig will show you what cell phone overuse and electrical power can lead to. The sometimes the complicated relationships of children and parents are the subject, for example in the Iranian film The Lovely Sky and the student film Meet Again from South Korea.

Interest in the education of their audience was expressed by Swedish filmmakers in the film of World War II The Story of Bodri and by Spanish filmmakers in the story Chimborazo, about indigenous people few know about, who carry ice from the South American Andes.

In this year's competition, we will even find two films that recall Zlín legends. Inspired by the timeless work of Karel Zeman, British director John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), in collaboration with Czech producer Ondřej Beránek, filmed the mysterious Middle Watch, which was nominated for a BAFTA Award. Norwegian director Aleksander Leines Nordaas, in his Kind of Fishy, distinguished himself with playfulness, imagination, and a revival of non-traditional objects, where ordinary driftwood turns into a whole plethora of underwater creatures.

One of the international premieres to be held in Zlín will be by the Canadian film Where Rabbits Come From, which uses a dystopian story to play with this question in a very original way.

The Czech animated film scene has been collecting one prize after another all over the world for several years and the Zlín competition is full of unique new Czech films. The Bionaut company has two hopes for winning: for the little ones Our Piggy by Jaromír Plachý, and the magical film My Name Is Edgar And I Have A Cow by Filip Diviak, winner of the Golden Slipper in 2019 for the film Cloudy. Czech universities will also have representatives. The one in Zlín will be represented by Alexandra Chovanová with Dandelions, and Prague's FAMU school will be represented by a playful exercise Cats Are Liquid directed by Natalia Durchánková. Jan Mika created the cute stop-motion drama The Goose in co-production with the famous studio Autour de Minuit; it's about a merciless fight for a football between a little boy and a sneaky goose. The aforementioned film Lights by Jitka Nemikinsová was supported by the FILMTALENT ZLÍN Foundation. Last year's winner of the highest award in short animations for children, Lucie Sunková, is also returning to Zlín. Her Vicky, The Sleepy-Bye Owl shows children that an owl does not have to be a nocturnal animal.

List of animated short films in competition at the 63nd Zlín Film Festival:

"Meet Cute" (CAN, 2022, Shawn Patrick Tilling)

A Journey with My Dad (ISR/GRA, 2022, Mori Israeli)

A Tiny Voyage (FRA/SUI, 2022, Emily Worms)

Ahru (ARG, 2023, Leandro Martínez)

All My Colours (ESP, 2023, Marc Riba, Anna Solanas)

Animanimals – Cat (GER, 2022, Julia Ocker)

Animanimals – T-Rex (GER, 2022, Julia Ocker)

Apocalypse Dog (FRA, 2022, Aziliz Le Clainche, Camille Nasarre, Jing Qian, Juliette Barraux, Emma Plumey, Lucile Arnaud, Solène Cauchie)

Balcony Cacophony (NLD, 2022, Quentin Haberham)

Bléh (NLD, 2022, Tim Alards)

Buon Ferragosto (CAN, 2022, Claudia Miatello)

Canary (FRA, 2022, Pierre-Hugues Dallaire, Benoit Therriault)

Cats Are Liquid (CZE, 2023, Natálie Durchánková)

Corvine (CAN, 2022, Sean McCarron)

Crab (POL/FRA, 2022, Piotr Chmielewski)

Daily Tales - Part One: The Magnificent Beauty Of A Train Ride (GER, 2023, Alexander Dietrich, Johannes Flick)

Dandelions (CZE, 2022, Alexandra Chovanová)

Desert Critter (GER, 2023, Lina Walde)

Fraiha (QAT, 2022, Amal Al-Shammari, Hossein Heydar)

Guard of Honour (LTV, 2021, Edmunds Jansons)

Hidden Heroes (GER, 2022, Anna Levinson)

Hooba (NLD, 2022, Sem Assink)

Chimborazo (ESP, 2022, Keila Cepeda)

Kind of Fishy (NOR, 2022, Aleksander Leines Nordaas)

Kintsugi (USA, 2022, Cleto Acosta-McKillop)

La Calesita (ARG/CAN/USA, 2022, Augusto Schillaci)

Lazy Bloom (FRA, 2022, Robin Artero, Aurore Devichi, Juliette Gueydan, Manon Jumel, Elsa Mandelsaft, Benjamin Mourgues, Sophie Nippert, Elodie Tardif

Lights (CZE, 2023, Jitka Nemikinsová)

Lovely Rita (SUI, 2022, Elena Madrid)

The Lovely Sky (IRN, 2022, Amir Mehran)

Malacabra (FRA, 2022, Marylou Bort, Mathilde Bourges, Hugo Florin, Jeremy Guibert, Valentine Miniot, Vincent Nogues, Axel Prukop, Pierre Segonds)

Meal on the Plate (CHN/USA, 2021, Chenglin Xie)

Meet Again (KOR, 2023, ap-sol KANG)

Middle Watch (GBR/CZE, 2022, John Stevenson)

My Name Is Edgar and I Have a Cow (CZE/SVK, Filip Diviak)

Our Piggy: Blocks (CZE, 2022, Jaromír Plachý)

Papirola (ESP, 2022, Fabián Molinaro)

Peter the Beetle (EST, 2022, Meelis Arulepp)

Pig (NLD, 2021, Jorn Leeuwerink)