ASIFA BOARD – All members Dear Mrs. President, esteemed Board Members, Dear friends,

The first evening of 2007 Annecy festival, which I’ll never forget, is already one month behind us, and during this past 30 days I experienced the feeling of deepest possible joy and the feeling of aching sorrow.

I returned from Annecy as the happiest person in the world finding out already at the airport, that one of my closest collaborate passed away the day before without a single notice of illness. I was shocked and disorientated, and may be for the first time in my life I felt how thin the line is which divides absolute happiness from absolute pain!

But after a while I found out the old truth that the life has to go on, and I felt the need to thank all my collaborators for the long years of devotion to an idea inherited from the people who invented the World festival of animated film in Zagreb. I am only the one who tried her best to keep their idea alive. The 2007 ASIFA Prize proves that the idea was worth fighting for.

I am afraid even to think about the names of the masters who have been awarded the same prize, and the only thing I can promise to all of you – with or without Zagreb festival – animation and the feeling to belong to it, the feeling of respect for the art of unpredictable possibilities will be a guideline for me in the years to come.

I thank you for all the wonderful moments I had the honour to live inside of the ASIFA family.

Margit (Buba) Antauer 2007-07-17