Animest: Bucharest animation festival invites the public to rediscover the city

Animest, the international animation festival, aims to encourage its audience to rediscover the city and “reconnect to its vibration and rhythm.”

The festival is scheduled to take place in Bucharest between October 4 and October 13.

Street Spirit (Fade Out), Urban Discipline, Overpass Graffiti, There Goes the Neighborhood, and Street Fighting Man are the five themed short sections in this year’s edition. They have been curated by festival director Mihai Mitrică alongside French journalist and film historian Alexis Hunot, who is a guest of the festival this year as well.

“It is a dense edition, with many screenings and guests from all over the world. We have focused the selection on the city and the community, with all the advantages, subtleties, joys, and shortcomings it entails, and the film selection tries to reflect a bit of all so that every member of the audience can discover something that represents them or provokes them, visually or narratively. The special night events and the concerts will also be part of the program,” Mitrică explained.

“In the themed section, we wanted to show how animation describes living in an urban context. From Canada to Taiwan, Columbia or Ukraine, we go around the world and notice the differences and similarities in urban life as they are showcased in animation films,” Alexis Hunot said.

(Illustration: the organizers)