Animafest Zagreb is a festival entirely dedicated to animated film. Initiated by the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA), the event was established in 1972. Animafest is the second oldest animation festival in the world, after the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (established in 1960).
More than 1,600 films from 76 countries registered for this year's festival and 44 were selected for the Grand Competition, 46 for Student Competition and 9 for Feature Film Prize.
This year's keynote is the winner of Animafest's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies 2017, Maureen Furniss, American author, historian and animation theoretician. Furniss is the programme director for experimental animation at California Institute of the Arts, editor of Animation Journal magazine, and author of Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics, The Animation Bible and A New History of Animation. The speakers will focus on the following subjects: the changing roles of festivals, comic books and animation, animation in the mind, and new media animation – VR and the web.
Animafest Scanner is jointly organised by Animafest Zagreb and ASIFA Austria, with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Zagreb, AG Animation (GfM) and Webster University from Vienna.
Historical and current trends, numerous perspectives, new findings in the fast-growing field of animation studies, paired with exciting speakers – all this and more awaits you at the Animafest Scanner symposium, in the context of screenings and other events organised by Animafest 2017, the festival organisers said on the Animafest web site.