Skopje Hosts First Animated Film Festival

The Forest, by David Scharf

The festival, the first of its kind in Macedonia, starts with the screening of the film “Babel” by French author Hendrick Dusollier in Skopje’s Youth Cultural Centre. The film is a blend of high-definition photography and 3D animation.

On Friday the audience will be able to see this year’s Oscar winner, “The Lost Thing” by Australian authors Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan.

Some 50 short films will be screened from Thursday to Saturday during the three days of the festival, including projections in the Cinematheque of Macedonia and the Skopje Holocaust Museum.

“The fact that this is taking place as we celebrate 40 years of Macedonian animated film makes the festival even more important,” says Kuzman Kuzmanovski of the production house “Auripigment”, which has organized the event.

Thirty-six short animated movies made the official selection. The winner will be presented with the so-called Golden Brick award.

Loser Leg, by Francesco Filippi

In addition, Animax is showing a set of movies from this year’s London International Animation Festival, LIAF, as well as a selection of Scandinavian films.

A children’s selection accompanied by children’s film workshop is also included.

The festival features a special programme dedicated to the history of the Macedonian animated film that started during the 1970s and peaked during the 1980s.
 
With authors such as Darko Markovic, Delco Mihajlov, Slavoljub Ignjatovic, Tonkica Mitrovska, Mice Jankulovski and others receiving world acclaim, the 1980s were considered a brief golden age for Macedonian animated film.