Flagey will be vibrating to the rhythm of animation and cartoons for 10 animated days! On the bill: screenings of short films, including programmes of shorts chosen as the best there is from this year’s production, screenings of features, with several much awaited sneak peeks… and lots of surprises with a host of pretty, joyful, poetic, metaphysical, deep, violent films, all the time, for all tastes and all ages (families in the mornings and afternoons and adults in the evening)…

There’ll also be exhibitions, mapping, conferences, workshops, a spotlight on French cinema, numerous guests, some very animated nights, concerts, meetings and things to munch and drink!

Every year at this time, the ANIMA programmers are busy watching all the submissions to select the best animated gems from all over the world, for the 38th edition of the Festival in March 2019.

In addition to the major events for young and old alike, the ANIMA Festival has chosen to spotlight the work of France, most likely Europe’s most prolific country in terms of animation.

Besides the screenings & focus on France, it will also host the FUTURANIMA professional days, which will happen between 4-9 March 2019. Futuranima opens on Monday 4 March 2019 with an Industry Day, an event where Belgian animation studios pitch new projects and are on the lookout for animators. The next day will be a Student Day, specifically dedicated to students who are preparing their professional future.

As usual, we will offer many activities for children and teenagers: school screenings, workshops, a young jury… ANIMA will once again be the place for discovering the latest advances in virtual reality. Visitors will experience total immersion into this distinctive world. Sensations guaranteed!

In Flagey, the festival will offer, among other things, all its previews with the international feature film competition, the national and international competitions of short films and end-of-study films, the Futuranima Journées professionnels, free workshops. introduction to animation cinema for children, a one-week workshop for teens, meetings with directors, an exhibition, concerts, the Animated Night, …

Lastly, if you don’t manage to come down to Flagey for the Festival we will be going on tour in Wallonia and Flanders. Do not hesitate to come and meet us in Liège, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Ghent, Leuven, Antwerp and Genk.

During these 10 days of lively celebration, more than 45,000 spectators should pass in the corridors of Flagey but also in Cinematek for a tribute to Isao Takahata, at the Cinema Galleries for an exhibition Paul Bush and at the Palace for the feature films césarisés within the framework of focus France.

In short, ten days entirely devoted to animation with a total of 385 films screened over more than 100 sessions.

Find the full schedule on their website.

The post 38th edition of the Anima Brussels International Animation Film Festival appeared first on Brussels Express.

But Tehran Taboo shows the other side of this: prostitutes and drug dealers do business with the very state agents who claim to uphold “morality laws”, fake hymens are on sale to restore the virginity of would-be brides, and corrupt officials offer anything from divorce papers to clandestine abortions in return for bribes or sexual favours. A debut from Iranian expat Ali Soozandeh, the film follows four young people trying to live their lives in a double-faced society, and is a touching story of friendship and the determination to enjoy life as much as it is a cutting indictment of a repressive regime.

Soozandeh’s anger at the hypocrisy of Iranian society is real, unsparingly railing at how something as small as a prank call can result in the threat of exile or execution. But the film’s bitterness does not prevent it taking an understanding and sympathetic approach to its characters. Everyone has a secret in Tehran Taboo, everyone has to lie to avoid being cracked down on by the “Morality Police”. The stories of the main characters become intertwined in ways that might seem unlikely in any other film, but here reflect how an ever-present restrictiveness brings people together and involves everyone in its deceit. The protagonists – a prostitute and her son, two liberal-minded young women, a student musician – find themselves helping each other out, moved by the common desire simply to live according to what they want from life and not what is decided for them.

The expression of that desire is also a resistance to the anonymity that the city threatens. Tehran is a city of over 8 million people, many of whom have come to find work and are instead confronted with violence and a loss of hope. In the animation, we see beggars in the background of almost every scene, and are taken into the alleys where prostitutes and poor watchmen try to make their living. Equally distressing is the sense of entrapment that characterizes even the apparently luxurious apartment block where some of the characters live. Those characters look out over the sprawling city and see birds swirling through the sky – a symbol that in the end becomes double-sided, like everything else in Tehran, expressing tragedy as well as hope.

Tehran Taboo is a daring film, daring in the sympathy it offers its characters as well as its head-on confrontation with a dangerous state. Using rotoscope animation, it presents provocative scenes that would otherwise be impossible to film while maintaining a level of human likeness. It worthy of the Anima festival, proving how animation can tackle difficult themes without simplifying them and with great humanity.

The post Film Review: Tehran Taboo appeared first on Brussels Express.

These are the words of Doris Cleven, director of Anima 2018, as she lays out the nuances of this year’s animated festival.

Anima is a yearly animation festival that takes place in Brussels. It is the biggest in Brussels and indeed Belgium, so it always attracts world-class talent to the comic capital. This year, they will provide not only an insight into the directors of the films but show the intricacies of the process of animation and creation.

With Anima 2018 getting underway today, let’s examine what’s special about this year’s festival and how everything is lined up to make it one of the most extravagant to date.

This year’s festival will have a combination of shorts, feature films, director talks, exhibitions and even live animation designs.

There will be films held throughout each day of these two weeks, playing from morning to night. Many films shown are yet to be judged or awarded, so audiences get the chance to act as unofficial critics, having first glances of the films and weighing up their character before they gain the prestige from the festival.

With a special focus being on Estonian animation. To celebrate 100 years of the country’s independence, Estonian animators have sent seven films to be screened throughout the festival. Excited by the fact, Doris exclaimed: « they approached us and asked to appear at our festival, and we immediately accepted; as Estonian animation is known in the industry for being exceptional. »

Each year, around 60 directors come from abroad to the festival, and this year, there will be some of the biggest names of animation in attendance: Peter Lord, from the famous Aardman studio that created Wallace and Gromit, director of Oscar-nominated film Red Turtle, Michael Dudock de Wit, and with director Michel Ocelot of the classic animation Kirikou and the Sorceress director, there will be many older audience members revealing in wonder and nostalgia. Many of these directors will be hosting a Q&A with a screening of their films or even a masterclass in animation, allowing greater interaction between audience and artist.

There are also exhibitions of many elements of the animated films, giving attendees a completely rounded view of the animation and further immersing them into the artform. Highly appraised film Loving Vincent, a movie told through paintings, will not only have an exhibition of the paintings that were used in the film, but one of the film’s artists is in attendance and will be painting scenes and compiling them into an animated segment as a live audience watch – giving a tremendous and nuanced insight into the skill and patience that goes into each animated film feature at the festival. And some Estonian studios have even sent some of the puppets used in the animation for an exhibition too.

As for the future of the festival, « We don’t want to set expectations, as that might get in the way of our preparation for the festival and make us too rigid to be able to chose films that we might later discover » says Doris, « but as with all of the Anima festivals, we go through such meticulous planning and selecting of the films and inviting of the directors that the audience is never left underwhelmed and always thrilled« 

The post Anima 2018 – What can we expect? appeared first on Brussels Express.