Back to index of Festival Previews

SELECTION AT ZAGREB ANIMAFEST 2002 David Ehrlich

Over a thousand films in ten days! It was a marathon that was exhausting, irritating, exciting and sometimes even inspiring. With three committee members (Witold Nowak, Rada Sesic and myself) who held disparate views on what animation should be, it was surprising how we would find immediate agreement on so much, especially in the last couple of days as we grew to understand so well each other's values. Generally speaking, most of the films on which all of us immediately voted "yes" found their way into the Competition while many of the films with 2 votes out of three were placed in Information or sometimes, for reasons of balance, in the official Competition . I'd like to share with you my own perceptions about the films we viewed. 1) Student films from France, Great Britain, Korea and Germany were often as good if not better than many of the professional films. For the Student Competition of 54 films, we selected 10 from France, 7 from Great Britain, 6 from Korea and two from Germany. Two of the Korean and two of the German student films were so strong, in fact, that we placed them into the Official Competition. 2) This is just me, but through the last few years I've personally become somewhat impatient with certain stylistic tropes that seem to depend upon conditioned reflexes: a) North American films that are supposed to make us laugh whenever someone farts, shits, vomits or chops off someone's head. b) British films, influenced by you-know-who, with slightly deteriorated doll's heads, little pieces of old machinery and mildly depressing music. I rejoice in Russian films like Karaev's "Feldmarshall Pulkin"that can make me laugh or feel sad by virtue of new imagery; in American films by Paul Fierlinger, Sheila Sofian and Michael Sporn that can deal with sensitive human reality . 3) Because of greater access to the software that makes it possible, there seems to be a sudden proliferation of hybrid forms of animation that use a good deal of live-action. I personally think this is a very interesting development. However, if you begin the film with live-action , the work would have a more sympathetic viewing if the live- action segment is short, quickly paced and interesting to watch. Not only may one selector or another just not like such hybrids, but animation festivals quite rightly have the value that animation must comprise at least 50% of the film, and selectors get impatient waiting to see at what point animation may actually find its way into the film. 4) Again, keeping in mind that selection committees view so many films, and that these films may tend to blur in the mind a bit, rightly or not, films with good title graphics, and that begin with original graphic design and full and interesting animation just receive a fuller and more sympathetic viewing than those films which tend to take awhile before getting up to speed. 5) Those puppet animations with highly unique and well-designed puppets (especially the facial features) will gain positive attention more quickly and effectively than those which use Barbie dolls, GI Joes, or the above-mentioned deteriorated doll's heads. 6) I can think of at least 30 films I felt strongly should be in Competition that were not selected for any program. In looking through the list of films selected for Annecy and Stuttgart this year I see many of those films featured. Conversely, we agreed upon and selected a number of films rejected at both festivals. It's a truism to say that it's a crap shoot, but let's face it, selection committee members are all individual people with individual sets of values. And even those values are not tremendously consistent, but may well vary with how much sleep they've have, what they've had for lunch and certainly by the dialogue that develops between members of the selection committee. This is all to say that there are so many good up and coming animation festivals throughout the world (which all accept videos for selection purposes) it's certainly worthwhile to send your new work to as many festivals as you can. Play the odds and hope that whoever screens your work has had some sleep and a good lunch. Finally, I wanted publicly to thank Buba, Managing Director of Zagreb Animafest, for perfect organization of the selection screenings and the endless supportive paperwork that she would do into the late hours of the night. She was always charming and cheerful and made our impossible task possible and even enjoyable.The festival programs are well-balanced and fascinating. With over 1000 films from which to select, how could the programs not be great?! I've always loved this festival. It's a festival for animation and for animators. If you want to see a fine cross-section of the best work being done around the world, in an environment that encourages vigorous discussion not of markets but of the art of animation, this is the festival for you. Come once and you'll never want to miss another one.

Back to index of Festival Previews