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 Interview with festival director Midhat Ajanovic Questions: David Ehrlich (USA) 

ZAGREB 2002
15th World Festival of Animated Film

The World Animation Festival in Zagreb, after Annecy the oldest major animation festival, was founded in 1972, and so celebrates its 30 years anniversary (15th edition) in 2002.

David Ehrlich, long time ASIFA Board member, is working for the festival in the selection jury and has spoken with the new artistic director Midhat "Ajan" Ajanovic

David:

"Midhat, can you tell us all about your background prior to becoming Artistic Director of the Zagreb Festival?"
Ajan:

"I was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia on the 20th of October 1959. During my childhood and youth I fell in love with comic books and decided to give a try to make comic books my life and career. For this reason I began to write and draw simultaneously. Having finished the Secondary School, I enrolled at the University of Sarajevo where I studied literature. I also attended a course in classic animation at the world famous "Zagreb School of Cartoon Films" in Zagreb, Croatia and I studied film theory in Gothenburg. At present I am trying to win my doctoral degree in film studies by analyzing the "Canadian Phenomenon" in animation. The working title of my dissertation is "John Grierson and Animated Film".

My professional experience in former Yugoslavia includes the work as an editorial cartoonist and film critic in "Oslobodjenje", which was the main publishing house in Bosnia (at that time Bosnia was a federal state of former Yugoslavia), several published books and seven short animated films, some of which were awarded at various festivals. I also received prizes at cartoon exhibitions all over Europe. Or to put all this in a very short manner: I have been professionally drawing and writing since I was twenty.

When the war broke out in Sarajevo my pregnant wife and my daughter managed to escape to freedom, first to Macedonia where my son was born and then to Sweden. After being more than one year under siege in Sarajevo, I left the city too and joined my family in Sweden. My wife, my daughter, my son and I have lived in Gothenburg since 1994.

It took several years to learn Swedish and to become accommodated to the new country. During that period "Strip Art Features", a comic-strip agency situated in Slovenia for which I could write in my mother-tongue, employed me as a screen-writer on the "work for hire" basis. I also published my cartoons in Norwegian and Swedish newspapers."


David:

"Will we be seeing your caricatures of all of us in the Animafest daily bulletins?"
Ajan:

"Maybe. I really don't know if I will have time for making cartoons."
David:

"I understand you write as well."
Ajan:

"Yes, in fact it was my basic education. I published four novels in my mother-tongue. I hope that some of them will be published in Swedish in the course of the next two or three years. I also did some work in the field of literature for children. I think that writing is a very good alternative for a creative person. You must have somebody to finance your film, because it costs so much. But you need nothing if you want to write; only a pen and piece of paper."
David:

"What kind of writing are you now doing?"
Ajan:

"Today I write essays that chiefly deal with animated film and comics, which I publish in the second largest morning paper in Scandinavia, "Göteborgs-Posten", as well as in Croatia's leading film magazine "The Croatian Cinema Chronicle". I am also an animation history professor at the Animation House in Eksjö and, of course, the new artistic director of "Animafest" in Zagreb, which is a temporary job that makes me proud and happy."
David:

"You've certainly been busy. Too busy to work on films?"
Ajan:

"Last year I made a documentary "The Journalist" for Norwegian producer "Kärivold Film". There is also possibility that one of my novels will be adapted for a movie but my most important current ambition is still to make my new animated film after an almost 11 years long interruption. I hope that I will get such a chance as soon as my job in Zagreb is finished."
David:

"Can you tell us a bit about your plans for your new film?"
Ajan:

"I can only say the title of that idea, which is still a "maybe film". The title is "The Man who was born with a very strange swelling in the throat". Just a couple of minutes before I answered your questions I spoke to a girl that works as a producer in a Swedish film-house. It will probably be a Swedish-Croatian co-production."
David:

"Can you tell us of your NEW plans for the festival? I mean, in addition to the magnificent website, what changes may we expect? "
Ajan:

"The main idea with "Animafest", as I see it, is to make the festival look like an old friend who always has something new to show or to tell you. There is no reason to change the festival's general conception, which is something that worked very well during all these thirty years. Of course, there will be some little improvements and new ideas. "
David:

"For instance-...?"
Ajan:

"I have proposed to the Festival Council the establishment of a new special prize for an extraordinary achievement in the field of animation theory."
David:

"Ah, this is one result of having an animation professor as artistic director. Who would be the judges of such a prize, and what do you think the criteria should be for 'extraordinary achievement'? "
Ajan:

"This will be exactly the same structure as it is the case with the life-achievement award and other special prizes. The Artistic Director proposes the award winner and the Festival Council makes the final decision. What are the 'criteria"? The books, lectures, essays, in fact the entire activities of a person. You can judge a theoretical contribution in the field of animation just as you can judge the practical one - by the complete works. I think that a certain artistic form cannot exist without both its practical and theoretical sides."
David:

"Tell us more about the festival."
Ajan:

"We shall also present the work of our life-achievement award winner Paul Driessen as well as the retrospective program of the great European animation pioneer, Victor Bergdahl.
There is also a very interesting program called "Best of the Best" with the best animated films shown at our Festival of Animation during the second half of the twentieth century. There are programs with Canadian, Norwegian and Japanese animation as well as a program with films from my homeland, Bosnia. There will also be a special tribute given to several great animators that have passed away in the last two years, and we shall organize several exhibitions and panels about animation and much more."
David:

"Yes, some of our most beloved friends have passed away in the last two years. Who will be given tribute?"
Ajan:

"I don't dare to mention all the names because I'm afraid of forgetting someone. My friend Bordo, the great animator of the "Zagreb School", concerns himself with that program. I'm sure he will organize it in a best possible way."
David:

"As the Annecy Animation Festival competes head-on with you in June for the attendance of many of the same filmmakers in Competition, are there ways in which you are profiling your festival to maintain its rightful historical place in the festival firmament?"
Ajan:

"I really don't want to compare Annecy and Zagreb. Besides, I cannot do it impartially. My film "Goya-Munch-Lautrec" was shown in Annecy, I was twice a member of the FIPRESCI jury there so I LIKE Annecy, but I LOVE Zagreb. Zagreb is the festival with which I grown up, that's been my window through which I could glance at wonderful world of animation. And honestly, David, I don't see why we should give up our traditional term in June (as some people proposed) because of Annecy's independent and free decision to change into an annual pace. Annecy is the largest festival in the world and I am happy that it exists for the benefit of animation as a whole. Zagreb is substantially the festival organised by animators for animators. People that make animated films and those who write about them know that they can feel at home in Zagreb since this is their festival. Literally so! I think that this secures our "rightful historical place in the festival firmament", as you said it. Both Annecy and Zagreb have its place in the wide world of animation."
David:

"Thanks, Ajan. Any final words to our readers who may be contemplating whether to attend this year's festival?"
Ajan:

"There is no need for any special final words. I'm sure that your readers, who are certainly people that love animation, already know very well where to go in the middle of June. So I just would like to give my best regards to all of them:
See you in Zagreb!"



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