ANIMA Brussels Reveals Short Films in Competition & 2020 Jury
Skwigly
ANIMA, the Brussels International Animation Film Festival, set to take place from the 21st February to 1st March 2020, in Flagey, is pleased to announce the selection of short films in competition for this 39th Festival.
The selection committee watched over 1,700 films and debated long and hard to defend their favourites right up to the end! Here is a sneak peek of the films chosen for Anima 2020.
A short review of this animated film viewing marathon
We can confirm a trend for Anima 2020: the running time of shorts has shifted to a longer format, sometimes between 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes even longer, in order to develop more proficient screenplays and varied and original visual worlds.
The 67 short films chosen for the international competition are mainly European (46 films) and will be screened in 7 “Best of Shorts” programmes for adults. As usual, France has been very prolific with 22 films in our international selection, followed by Germany and Canada.
The number of documentary films has also continued to increase and confirms the importance of our competition programme of documentaries. In addition, the selection committee would like to highlight the incredible profusion of films for children.
Films for a young audience also abound in the national competition, along with many top quality professional shorts. The Festival is therefore presenting all these little gems in two programmes of short professional Belgian films.
Finally, some big names have once again been selected with the new short by Bruno Collet, Mémorable, the latest from Kaspar Jancis Cosmonaut, along with Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days by Régina Pessoa, The Dawn of Ape by Mirai Mizue or The Physics of Sorrow by Theodore Ushev. On the Belgian side, it’s interesting to note the quick return of Lia Bertels, whose Nuit Chérie walked away with the award for best short Belgian film at last year’s Festival.
You can find the full list of the Anima 2020 short films in competition on our new website.
ANIMA 2020 JURY MEMBERS
A trio of filmmakers will make up the international competition jury for 2020:
- Jonathan Hodgson, independent British animator, whose shorts Night Club or The Man With The Beautiful Eyes have left their mark and won many international prizes. His latest autobiographical short Roughhouse has done very well on the festival scene (especially at Anima 2019) and also won a BAFTA.
- Filmmaker, illustrator and teacher Sébastien Laudenbach experiments with animation in all its forms. He spent nine months drawing every frame of his feature The Girl Without Hand and was rewarded with the Jury Award at Annecy 2016, among other prizes.
- The young Polish animator Karolina Specht has already made half a dozen student films that have won numerous prizes in international festivals.
The winners of the national competition will be chosen by:
- Juan Antin, Argentinean filmmaker of many shorts and two features, Mercano, the Martian (2002) and Pachamama (2018) that you were able to discover at Anima 2019 and,
- journalist Alex Dudok de Wit, who grew up in London and has been immersed in the world of animation from a very young age. He is currently associate editor at Cartoon Brew and curator for Short of the Week.
- Joining these two will be Sarah Van Den Boom, filmmaker and character designer, who co-founded the production studio Papy3D. Her latest film Raymonde or the Verticle Escape has been screened at over one hundred festivals and has recently won its 30th prize.
Anima will also be organizing its second competition for VR films. You can find out the selection of films along with the jury shortly.