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The 18th edition of the Fest Anča International Animation Festival brings a fresh selection of the most intriguing, diverse and offbeat animations from the past two years. The festival will take place in Žilina, Slovakia from June 24-29, 2025.
A record-breaking 1,800 short animated films from 83 countries were submitted to Fest Anča this year. That’s 203 hours — over eight and a half days — of nonstop viewing, featuring works from countries including Mexico, Sweden and Malaysia. The pre-selection committee, consisting of Jakub Spevák, Ema Nemčovičová and Peter Gašparík, spent several months carefully reviewing each and every one. In the end, 218 films were chosen for the festival’s official selection.
Films that win the Anča Award for Best Animated Short and Best Slovak Animated Short are automatically eligible for consideration in the Oscar Best Animated Short Film Competition.
Only 36 films made it into the main competition, 13 of them student works. The lineup features big names in contemporary animation, including Yoriko Mizushiri, Sasha Svirsky, Koji Yamamura and Amanda Therese Bonaiuto, as well as emerging talents.
The selection showcases a diverse range of techniques, including stop-motion animation uncovering layers of street graffiti, and unconventional methods like 3D scanning and pinscreen animation. Narratives tackle current social issues, such as he Czech-Slovak-Ukrainian documentary I Died in Irpin, which reconstructs the events of February 24, 2022. as well as fictive universes.
Student works from the Slovak Academy of Performing Arts, FAMU in Prague and the Dutch Design Academy Eindhoven dominate the Slovak film competition’s eight films. Among them is Matúš Vizár, who returns with his new film Free the Chickens, which follows four activists. His previous film, The Pandas (2013), scored at international festivals and was placed third in the Cinéfondation section at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Covering genres including as rap, indie rock, K-pop, trash metal and more, the fest’s popular music video competition will present unique visions, such as a video composed in 15 animation styles from 15 animators around the world, and one inspired by Nosferatu.
Fest Anča’s children’s competition features six short films full of fun and friendship, each with a message that resonates with adults too. One such film tells the story of a small poisonous mushroom that dreams of becoming a chef, but must overcome the prejudice of its surroundings.
The festival’s non-competitive sections also feature intriguing and bold films. These include works that narrowly missed out on the competition, along with shorts from around the world, animated documentaries, films for children and non-narrative animations. One standout in the latter category is Glass House, which incorporates artificial intelligence — but only to the extent that the director’s creative input remains clearly visible.
The most sophisticated and entertaining films can be found in the Anča in Wonderland section, which takes audiences down a rabbit hole of absurdity, wit, and bizarre creativity. Anča in Mordor, on the other hand, swaps laughter for fear, discomfort and spreading mold. The most films packed into one program can be found in the Extremely Short Section of Extremely Short Films, featuring films under two minutes long.
The main theme of the festival’s 18th edition is “Our Bodies.” Fest Anča promises to deconstruct them, reshape them into new forms and breathe new life into them, with the aim of sensitizing us to our own bodies and those of others. The festival raises questions about whether we can exist outside of our bodies, or if we are too attached to them. Are our bodies, perhaps, the ultimate instruments of resistance?
While this theme is central to the festival’s exploration, it wasn’t the determining factor in selecting films for the official Fest Anča lineup. Instead, the theme will be reflected in special curated sections on corporeality, as well as in the selection of feature films, retrospectives, and other parts of the program to be announced in coming months.
The Fest Anča International Animation Festival 2025 is financially supported by the Audiovisual Fund, LITA Fund and SPP Foundation.
festanca.sk
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