The 18th edition of the ANIMEST International Animation Film Festival takes place between October 6th and 15th in Bucharest. The section dedicated to professionals has a rich agenda of presentations, meetings and debates essential to the animation community.
"For 18 years we have made it our mission to revive and promote local animation. Connecting with the international animation community is an essential componentof the professionalization and development of Romanian animation. With the support of EEA grants, this year we have conferences and conversations with the most important representatives of the Norwegian animation industry - a cultural space with exponential development, which constantly produces award-winning and internationally recognized productions", declares Mihai Mitrică, director of Animest.
Among the most important events of the conference, we mention:
- Saturday, October 7th, 17:00, Eforie cinema - Anders Narverud Moen, director of the Fredrikstad Animation Festival in Norway will give a presentation about the Norwegian animation scene. Fredrikstad is the most important animation festival in Scandinavia, with an important competition section for the entire Nordic and Baltic region.
- Wednesday, October 11th, 11:30, Instituto Cervantes - Frank Mosvold is the director of the Norwegian production company KoolProduction, with a rich portfolio of short films, TV series and feature films. Frank believes he has made all the mistakes a filmmaker can make and is ready to share all those lessons with the Animest community.
- Thursday, October 12, 13:00 Cervantes Institute - Marie-Laure Guisset & Sunniva Fluge Hole are part of the team Titina (Norway, 2022, directed by Kajsa Naess), an animated film selected in the competition of major animation festivals. The workshop will illustrate the creative process of the Norwegian studio "Mikrofilm", from the first Titina sketches to the projection of the feature film on the big screens all over the world.
Admission is free to all events.
ANIMEST+, the program launched by Animest with the support of EEA grants,meets the urgent needs of the animation industry in Romania, of young animators, of informed future moviegoers and of communities lacking in cinematic cultural life. Animation in Romania is still a neglected, underfunded sector, where few films are produced and, despite the remarkable results, are hardly distributed at all. During the year, Animest organized a program of education through culture in rural areas of Romania, a filmmaking camp for high school students and a film caravan through small towns with limited access to culture.
The complete schedule of conferences will be published on the project website https://www.plus.animest.ro
The ANIMEST+ project meets the urgent needs of the animation industry in Romania, of young animators, of informed future moviegoers and of communities lacking in cinematic cultural life. The project is led by the ANIMEST Association in partnership with Kool Produktion, a reputable production house in Oslo, Norway. During 2023, the project proposes a series of activities: education through culture in the Romanian countryside, a summer school for high school students, traveling cinema in Romanian cities and a conference dedicated to professionals and young people interested in the cinematographic industry. The total budget of the project is 979,185.85 lei (199,066.02 euros), of which 952,781.52 lei (193,698.09 euros) is the amount of non-refundable financial support.
The EEA grants represent the contribution of Iceland, the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Kingdom of Norway to the reduction of economic and social disparities in the European Economic Area and to the strengthening of bilateral relations with the 15 beneficiary states in Eastern and Southern Europe and the Baltic States. These financing mechanisms are established on the basis of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which brings together the EU member states and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway as equal partners in the internal market. In total, the three states contributed €3.3 billion between 1994 and 2014 and €1.55 billion for the 2014-2021 funding period. More details are available on www.eeagrants.org and www.eeagrants.ro
The RO-CULTURE program is implemented by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit and has as its general objective the consolidation of economic and social development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The Program's budget is approximately 34 million euros. More details are available at www.ro-cultura.ro.