Press Release:
The biggest film festival in Bucharest is plotting its eighth edition!
Between October 4 to 13, Anim’est awaits spectators at Patria Cinema and Studio Cinema in Bucharest with carefully chosen movies by the festival’s director Mihai Mitrică. The organizers are promising a new successful edition, full of awarded animations, workshops, concerts and, of course, the most fresh parties.
Anim’est continues to increase significantly every year. However, some Romanian public institutions are treating us with an indifference which is sometimes disturbingly similar to sabotage. So every year our budget gets smaller and smaller. The budget holes are filled up with great effort, almost a year after the end of the festival, before the start of next edition. But Anim’est stubbornly survives. Moreover, increases. And brings more guests, more events and better and diversified movies. Every year we amplify our educational platform and 5 years after the first Anim’est workshop, more animators reveal in whose training Anim’est had an essential role.
I hope that in a not too distant of a future, the festival will no longer be threatened with extinction. I also hope that the Animation Worksheep will become a permanent school, said Vlad Ilicevici, the festival’s executive director.
Besides films in the Minimest section, the youngest spectators are also welcomed, in large numbers, at the opening film, the French-Belgian animation Ernest et Célestine. The opening gala for the eighth edition of the festival will be held on October 4 at Patria Cinema, at 7pm.
Known for Panique au village, directors Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar together with Benjamin Renner released, last year, an animation based on the beloved children’s book series by Gabrielle Vincent, with a screenplay by the French writer Daniel Pennac, scenario that lends itself to multiple interpretations for all ages. The result is a 2D film that will anoint old school animation fans with a visual style faithful to the book’s illustrations and adorable characters that seem drawn in watercolor.
Célestine is a young mouse from an orphanage, where they constantly learn to fear bears, the primary enemy to its species, but gets to befriend one of them, the musician Ernest – a gentle giant with Lambert Wilson’s voice (Matrix Reloaded, Of Gods and Men). In the era of 3D movies, Anim’est suggests an animation with classical charm, a story young moviegoers love and adults enjoy because they will certainly remember childhood’s cartoons and graphic novels.
Ernest et Célestine premiered last year at Cannes, in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs competition, where it received a special mention, but its most important distinction has been the César Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2013. The film participated in festivals such as Toronto IFF, Hong Kong IFF or Animafest Zagreb, where it was projected during the opening.
The Anim’est International Animation Film Festival is organized by the Estenest Association.
More details of the eighth edition’s schedule will be available soon.
