ANIMAFEST ZAGREB 8 – 13 June 2026 - Zagreb, Croatia

THE END OF AN ERA

Animafest Zagreb is always a highlight of my festival year. The combination of excellent competition programs, special screenings, exhibitions, and a lovely group of guests, along with the warm, welcoming atmosphere, makes for a perfect festival.

Daniel Suljic, Artistic Director of Animafest Zagreb, had already announced that after sixteen years, 2026 would be his last year at the helm of the festival. It is no secret that I think that Daniel is one of the best film programmers around. The competition programs at Animafest Zagreb are always strong, and the special screenings never fail to hold delightful surprises along with well-loved older films.

Along with his year-round festival duties, Daniel is a filmmaker, musician, and DJ, and is Head of the Department of Animation and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb. He is also first and foremost just a nice guy.

When asked about stepping down from such a high-profile position as director of the second-oldest animation festival in the world, Daniel said he wants time to devote to making films and to his music. I imagine that he would also like to have some time for a personal life too.

It is no secret that Daniel is loved by many people in the animation world. To show the appreciation so many of us feel for him, Olga Bobrowska, director and co-founder of STOP-TRIK Festival and animation historian, organized the creation of The Book Of Daniel/Sweet Sixteen as a present for him. The book contains drawings and messages from more than 100 animators and animation professionals from around the world. Olga secretly contacted many of us, put the book together, and arranged for the printing.

Everyone who contributed a drawing, a memory, a song, whatever, to the book who was at the festival on closing night came up on stage and completely surprised Daniel with the gift. How so many people managed to keep the secret when we were with him every day at the festival is amazing, but we did it.

The Festival Council is charged with selecting the new Artistic Director. Their rules say that the Animafest director must be Croatian and an animator. Hearty congratulations go to the new director, Kata Gugic. Daniel is going to be a hard act to follow. Kata is young as far as festival directors go, just 36 years old, but she is already an established animator. Her 2020 film, Cockpera, won numerous festival awards. She has also been working with the festival for the past few years, conducting the animator interviews following the screenings, so she is already a familiar person to festival goers.

I add my congratulations to Kata as she assumes her new role and look forward to seeing what wonderful film treats she will have in store for us next year. I feel assured that she will carry on the wonderful traditions of the Zagreb Animation Festival.

As I was writing this, I received an email that Matea Milic, longtime producer of the Anima Zagreb Festival, has passed away at the age of 45 after a courageous battle with a terrible illness. A beloved member of the Croatian and International animation community, her positive attitude, energy, and vivacious personality combined with warmth and humor made her the heart and soul of the festival. There seemed to be no problem that she couldn’t solve. There are no words to say how much she will be missed by all of us who knew and loved her. I last was with her at the festival in June, and if you didn’t know, you would never have thought that there was anything wrong. She was her usual bubbly self.

I send my deep condolences to her family and also to her festival Zagreb family.

Another beloved member of the Zagreb festival family, Margit Antauer, known to everyone as Buba, announced that after three terms she is stepping down as Chairman of the Festival Council when her term ends in February 2027. Buba’s extensive knowledge of the management of the festival will be missed, but she can now at long last devote herself to travel and other exciting personal adventures.

Among its important duties, the Festival Council is charged with selecting the annual recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. The 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award was presented at the Opening Night Ceremony to British animator Joanna Quinn.

Joanna and her iconic character Beryl, who embodies the “every woman”, are two of the most recognizable women in the world of contemporary animation. Both Joanna and Beryl possess wit and charm. They are powerful voices for all women’s perspectives, regardless of their race, creed, or color.

Joanna’s films, such as Girl’s Night Out, where Beryl is treated to a ‘ladies only’ night out, where she encounters a male stripper with hilarious results, have won numerous awards, including the 1986 Annecy Special Jury Prize.

Joanna has many other films to her credit, such as Britannia, about the British Colonial Empire, but it is Beryl that continues to delight audiences, win awards, and champion women. In Body Beautiful (1990), Beryl takes on her sexist boss and tries to find her creative side. In Dreams and Desires (2006), Beryl tries to find her creative side, and finally, in the 2021 film Affairs of the Art, Beryl finally finds her “place” in the art world.

Joanna is a worthy Zagreb Lifetime Achievement winner for sure!

The festival also hosted a beautifully mounted gallery exhibition of Joanna’s artwork. Along with original drawings from the four Beryl films, there were works spanning 40 years of her career. Beginning with her very first drawings for The Dancer, made when she was a first-year art student in 1982, there were also works from her four commissioned films: Famous Fred, Britannia (a personal favorite of mine), Elles, and Wife of Bath.

Working at Beryl Production Studio in Wales, which she co-founded with her writer, producer, and life partner Les Mills, Joanna spent 13 years honing her craft while making commercials.

A retrospective of Joanna’s films not only included her well-known films but also now seldom-seen commercials for Wiskers cat food, United Airlines, and Charmin toilet paper. The screening concluded with a 52-second HD video, This Land Is A Woman. The film is part of the Global Project To Gaza With Love. The global anijam is an international animation project organized by The Animation Community For Palestine (AC for Pal) where animators from 50 countries sent 10 to 30 second animated messages of love and support to the people of Palestine and especially to animator Haneen and her team who continue to hold animation workshops for women and children so that they can tell their stories in the midst of a war torn country.

Joanna’s contribution to the project, This Land Is A Woman, was inspired by Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan’s poem comparing the fertility of Palestinian land to the power of its women. Joanna also gave a workshop where she talked about her passion for animation and drew, drew, and drew. She also showed clips and original artwork. A born storyteller, her workshops and presentations are always different, never boring, and an opportunity to see a true animation genius at work.

This year’s festival theme was Music In Animation. Six separate screenings ranging from classical to contemporary music styles demonstrated the partnership between music and animated images. My husband, a musician and composer for animation, always says that music should not overpower the Image on the screen but rather enhance the visual images and story.

In the early days of animation, Claire Parker and Alexander Alexeieff’s 1933 French classic Night on Bald Mountain and Lotte Reiniger’s 1935 Papageno, music plays an integral part in the storytelling process. Using thousands of pins which the pair arranged and rearranged on their invention, the pin screen, the husband and wife team created goblins, skeletons, and other fantastic creatures set to Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s powerful music. Mussorgsky was inspired by an old Russian legend about a witches’ sabbath, as told in a short story by Nikolai Gogol. Alexeieff and Parker bring the story and music to life in their 8’ 21” film.

Adapted loosely from a section of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, pioneer German silhouette animator Lotte Reiniger used the opera’s plot loosely as the core of her story of Papageno’s search for his beloved.

Co-founder and director of the StopTrick Film Festival, Michal Bobrowski curated a selection of films as part of the music in film series that traces the lineage of synchronized images and sound as equal partners. His screening included films by early experimenters in the field of film and sound. Among them was Mary Ellen Bute’s Spook Sport (1940), which is an expressionistic interpretation of Dance Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens. Renowned animator, director, and producer Norman McLaren created animation using conventional cel animation and pen drawings directly on 35 mm film stock while Bute directed the film.

Another intriguing experimental animation screened as part of Michael’s program was Len Lye’s Trade Tattoo (1937).  Using the Technicolor system, the film is based on black and white footage taken from the British General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit documentaries.

The method that Lye used to transform the images has been described as the most complicated job of film printing and color grading ever attempted. He added animated words and patterns to make the images incredibly rich and multi-layered. The music on the film was played by a Cuban group, The Lecuona Band, an internationally known orchestra in the 30’s.

The Music in Animation program included two of my favorite films that incorporate music and animation. The 29-minute Monster of Nix by the late Netherlands animator Rosto is a dark fairy tale. Rosto told me that it was originally an ongoing story that he made up as a bedtime story for his young son.

In the film, Willy and his Grandmother live happily in the village of Nix until one day she disappears and the village is threatened by a terrible monster. Willy goes into the forest in search of his grandmother and to hunt down the monster and kill it.

The puppets and sets are lovely, the script was written, and the songs composed by Rosto, and the animated opera guest stars the voices of Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits. Sadly, Rosto passed away in 2019, leaving behind an amazing body of work that blends animation, live action, and his original music into films that explore subconscious imagery and dream-like narratives. I like all of Rosto’s films, but The Monster of Nix is my favorite.

Another film that incorporates animation and music is Swedish animator Niki Lindroth Von Bahr’sThe Burden (2017). Who couldn’t love a film where an operatic fish sings her sad heart out and after-hours janitorial mice tap dance their way through work ala Fred Astaire. This extremely dark musical takes place in a high-rise building next to a freeway that houses a supermarket, a call center, a fast food restaurant, and a hotel.

The Burden is a sardonic musical that nails loneliness, greed, and the existential woes of modern life in song and dance that could come straight from Broadway. Niki created a 14-minute musical with beautifully crafted animal puppets suffering the woes of modern human life on detailed sets. I have watched this film many times, and I never cease to be amazed by the amount of work that went into it. The film makes you smile while reminding you that there are real live people in the world who are just as anxiety-ridden and suffering while they try to survive as much as the tiny animals on screen.

A current film on the same subject of loneliness, neediness, intimacy, and romance is the Swedish film Please, written and directed by Anna Mantzaris. It was in the International Competition. The film follows several people in a big city who resort to increasingly unhinged acts in their desperation to find love. The dark comedy explores the sides of ourselves that we try to hide from a world where everyone is expected to appear perfectly happy, fulfilled, and in control of themselves at all times.

The stop motion film plunges the characters into situations that are both sad and heartbreaking but also very relatable to all of our everyday lives. The film, produced by well-known Swedish producer Johan Edstrom, received the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the festival. I think that the audience gives the most important award at a festival because it means that the director and film have reached the audience that it was made for. After the audience reaction to the film at Animafest, I am sure that we will be seeing a lot more of Please.

Along with the International Short Film, Student, and Feature Film Competitions, there were numerous special programs. I know and love the films by Slovenian animators Spela Cadez and Dusan Kestelic, but I didn’t know much about the history of Slovenian animation. Igor Prassel, Director of Animateka International Animation Festival in Ljubljana, presented four programs of Slovenian animation. One program was a historical overview beginning with Sada Dobrila’s 1952 10-minute puppet film 7 At Once, which he adapted from a children’s story by the Brothers Grimm.

Dobrila’s films are considered to be the first building blocks of Slovenian animation. In 1952 he returned home from Prague, where he had studied puppet animation under the great Czech master Juri Trinka. For almost 10 years after Sada returned, most Slovenian animation was based on puppet animation.

Igor also presented a program of contemporary Slovenian animation, a young audience program, and seven stop motion films in the Koyaa And The Naughty Objects series. They are extremely short  ( 2’’45”) and created for children. Each film features a playful, optimistic character named Koyaa and his friend Mr. Raven. In each episode, an object or objects around Koyaa comes to life and begin to cause havoc. For instance, Koyaa and Mr. Raven encounter an eraser that comes to life and begins to erase everything in its path as it hops around. The screening ended with an 11-minute documentary that showed the audience how Koyaa, Mr. Raven, and the sets were created.

The ASIFA Student Award is a project very dear to my heart since I was the person to originally propose it. Established in 2020 as part of the organization’s 60^th Anniversary celebration, the award is given annually to an outstanding student animator whose work demonstrates exceptional artistic talent and a fresh voice. In 2026, ASIFA received 175 submissions of student work from 21 countries. The 2026 jury was composed of Nelson Shin from ASIFA South Korea; Pencho Kunchev, ASIFA Bulgaria; and me, representing ASIFA San Francisco.

The winning film, Susurros, was created by Alexandra Pewinski, Marie Lombard, Florian Reignier, Emma Pluchard, Lisa Francillon, and Alice Parmeniter, students at Superinfocom Rubika located in Valenciennes, France.

In awarding the film, the jury stated: “Of the 11 final entries that the jury viewed for the 2026 ASIFA Student Award, Susurros stood out for its compelling visual language and sensitive narrative approach, making it a notable achievement among this year’s entries”.

Susurros travels from the 17th-century witch hunts in Europe to the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the United States in 2022. It follows two women faced with a pregnancy that was forced upon them, and neither chose to have. Separated by 4 Centuries, Maria and Adeleida see their destinies echoed as history repeats itself.

As the only member of the jury present at the festival, I had the honor of presenting the award to Florian Reignier, who represented the group. The ASIFA award is 2,000 Euros.

Each year, at its discretion, the Festival Council can give an award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies. This year’s recipient was Amid Amidi. In giving the award, the Council said the recipient is “co-founder and from 2004 to 2025 publisher and editor of Cartoon Brew, an online magazine that became one of the most important platforms for information, criticism, and scholarship on animation in the 21^st century. He also has published numerous periodicals and books.” The Council went on to say: “Equally interested in classical, modern, and contemporary animation, Amid Amidi, journalist, critic, historian, publisher, and editor, embodies a true Renaissance Man in contemporary studies”.

For the past 13 years, Scanners, The Symposium For Contemporary Studies, has been an integral part of Animafest Zagreb. It was created to encourage discussion and exchange between filmmakers and scholars and facilitate communication between theoretical and practical approaches to animation.

    During the two-day event this year, speakers focused on four topics: Genealogies of Animation Form: From Handcrafted Motion to Artificial Intelligence; Writing Animation History: Methods, Periodization and Perspectives; Curating Animation: Festivals, Exhibitions, and Canon Formation; and finally Music in Animation.

Along with the presentation of the trophy on opening night, the winner of the Animafest Zagreb Award For Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies is also invited to give the keynote address at Scanners. At this edition of the Symposium, Amid selected as his topic: American Animation History Is Inseparable From Corporations That Produce It And That Entanglement Can Have Consequences For How Its History Is Told.

In his presentation, Amid reflected on his personal practical difficulties of telling truthful stories about American animation in an industry that often emphasizes carefully curated narratives. What does history look like when access is conditional, when silence is rewarded, and when candor carries a professional risk?

As someone who grew up in America and began my journalistic career there, I have long been aware that the American studio system does not tolerate dissent within its ranks and creativity is squashed in favor of turning out “products” that translate into box office dollars. Although many of us are already aware of the tight fist that studio heads use to keep control of content, primarily concentrating on “mind-numbing” family entertainment, it is refreshing to hear someone say it out loud to a live audience.

Each year at the festival I look forward to hosting the English language segments of the book chats.   This year I had three books to discuss with their authors. First and foremost was Joanna Quinn’s wonderful Beryl. Joanna and I have had the opportunity over the past year to talk about her book at several festivals. Often, we have a very funny presentation where we talk together about her book and mine, 20 Years On The Animation Trail, A History of Animation Festivals, informally together, usually with the audience laughing along with us.

If you haven’t had a chance to see and read Beryl yet, be sure and do so. It is a behind-the-scenes look at how Joanna and Les Mills created her iconic character Beryl. The book includes sketches, storyboards, final artwork for the films, along with behind-the-scenes glimpses into their studio, Beryl Productions. The book also has an interactive QR code.

Anibar Animation Festival in Peja, Kosovo has a very special place in my heart. I was on the jury of the second edition of the festival. I have watched the festival grow and change, breathing new life into a city that was dying. Anyone who has read my book knows that I devoted an entire chapter to Anibar and how animation can change a city.

Anibar continues to evolve and break new boundaries. This year at the book chat, Editor-in-Chief Marko Djeska, Creative Director Meara Withe, and Anibar Festival Director Arba Hatashi presented the first edition of the Anibar International Festival Magazine.

The 121 pages are full of interviews with festival guests, artist spotlights, comics, and photo galleries. There is also a puzzle and a picture to color. The idea for the magazine grew out of a workshop that Marko ran in 2025. Anyone who has ever been to Anibar will love paging through the magazine and reliving wonderful memories of visits to Peja and Anibar.

My third book interview was with London-based script consultant and writer Alizée Musson. Her book, The Art of Writing Animation, Storytelling Craft for Writers and Animators, is a perfect book to have at hand for animators who would rather learn from fellow creatives rather than be told how to write. What makes this book different from other books on writing for animation is that Alizée has gone directly to the people who are actually creating scripts for some of our favorite films and television programs, such as Ratatouille and Peppa Pig to record over 25 case studies and interviews with writers, animators, and producers. The book even has a case study with Yoshiaki Nishimura, producer of The Tale of Princess Kaguya from Studio Ghibli. Tomm Moore, co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, talks about writing animated fairy tales and folklore. Michaela Pavlatova presents a case study about how to take the reader through her path of creating short films such as the award-winning Tram to finally adapting a novel into her first feature film, My Sunny Maad. These are just three of the fascinating stories in this book full of so much excellent information. You will not want to put the book down as you are also gaining valuable knowledge while being entertained by the numerous anecdotes that are recounted.

Since our interview, I have had the chance to read The Art of Writing Animation, and even though I never intend to write a script, I found many useful tips that can be applied to writing in general.

Animafest Zagreb is unique in so many ways. One that I especially enjoy is that we often find fascinating little presents in our festival bags. Socks seem to be a big festival gift of late, and they are always welcome, but nobody puts together a bag like Animafilm. This year our bags included a solid shampoo bar called Carbo Medical, a bottle of sunscreen, and a traditional yummy Croatian spiced cookie. There was also a tin of Jadranska Sardines, which I thoroughly enjoyed at the airport along with the bag of sliced mini bagel chips that were in my festival bag. One year I received a bottle of bubble bath oil. I loved it so much that I have been trying to find it every year when I go back to Zagreb with no luck. Thank you, Anifest, for bringing a smile to my face when I empty out my bag in my hotel room and giving me some lovely gifts that I actually do use. Your gifts are the best!

The week at Animafest Zagreb always flies by so quickly. There is so much to see and do at the festival that it is impossible to watch all of the films or attend all of the masterclasses and talks. It is nice that the festival bar is right in the center of everything. The size of the festival is not overwhelming, and it is easy to meet everyone at the outdoor bar area where there are plenty of tables and chairs. Everyone is invited to all of the social events. There are meet-and-greet events with wine and snacks and, of course, the traditional picnic, which this year was held in a lovely park with nice food, libations, and live music.

A big thank you goes to Daniel Suljic and festival producer Matea Milic for making my week at Animafest Zagreb so memorable and to the entire staff of the festival. You do an amazing job. Last but not least, a big thank you to all of the volunteers who always do such a lovely job and are so helpful if I need a question answered.

I am already looking forward to next year when the festival will be held during the week of June 7 to 12, 2027.

If you want more information about the 2026 edition of the festival, go to: www.animafest.hr

WINNING FILMS: