Fest Anča introduces a diverse Traditions programme, with headliners Adi Gelbart and Nina Pixel
Skwigly
The 14th Fest Anča has something for everyone, with so much more than animated films – such as great music and an accompanying programme that includes concerts, parties, lectures, and even readings. Concerts (which will only stay online for 24 hours after performance) and discussions will be freely available on Fest Anča’s Facebook page. DJ sets will be streamed on Twitch.
Music programme
Festival goers can look forward to the headlining German animator and musician Adi Gelbart, who will bring his electronic pop with a projection straight from Berlin. The local music scene is represented by Fokular, Dominik Suchý, Edúv syn, and Nina Pixel’s audiovisual project made in collaboration with Adrián Kriška. DJ Matwe, Peal, Teapot and DJ Kristie Kardio will get the parties started. Concerts and parties will be held live at Stanica Žilina-Záriečie and the New Synagogue, and listeners can also tune in from their own homes.
Dive into ourselves and the past
Adi Gelbert (Image via Fest Anča)
The music programme features Adi Gelbart, who charmed us all with his music video of flying cats, selected for the International Competition of Music Videos at Fest Anča 2020. As musical guest at the animation festival this year, with his analogue gear and mysterious homemade devices he will embark on a psychedelic exploration of modulated synthesizers – taking festival goers into a universe where all colours and shades of electronic pop blend together. Gelbart’s performance will follow the festival’s opening ceremony on Thursday.
Then Fokular – also known as the drummer of the instrumental duo Möbius – will propel listeners from the heights of space into musical minimalism in its purest form. His music communicates feelings of loneliness in a world full of crises and failures, emphasizing this year’s festival theme selection. But with tensions and threats, Fokular’s music also brings something ethereal and delicate, invoking profound contemplation on the meaning of life.
Dominik Suchý – a member of Tittingur and Weltschmerzen – will continue the concert’s contemplative nature with electronic music that confronts anxiety and doom rooted in the environmental crisis and capitalist hegemony. Edúv syn has very honest opinions about today’s problems – his trap has a super-dark, witty, and often engaged and antifascist lyricism that embraces taboos such as mental illnesses and suicidal thoughts. Both concerts are on Friday evening.
Nina Pixel (Image via Fest Anča)
The Ancestral Archaeology project, created by producer Nina Pixel and visual artist Adrián Kriška, is probably the most closely related to the festival’s Traditions theme. The project’s central idea is to offer an alternative point of view on Slovak folklore – stripped of old narratives, and instead incorporated with primarily queer and feminist forms. How do our roots feel? How does the soil of our home taste? What is our story to tell? These are some of the questions raised by the audiovisual project about civilizations living atop their ancestors’ habitat. Parties and Fest Anča favourites Žilina and online streaming will have plenty of evening parties in early July. Tomáš Ferko alias Teapot will enliven Thursday with sound that spans genres and combines lush-layered electronics, sparse and haunting live instrumentation, and even batshit noise. On Friday, Peal – a familiar figure on Bratislava’s underground scene and regular performer at renowned clubs among techno legends – will perform a playful, reliable, and well-thought set. On Saturday, Matwe will play an aggressive blend of electronic bombardment with special passion for industrial techno, EBM, and dark electro.
DJ Kristie Kardio “techno is everything” will steer Saturday’s party. And Fest Anča favourites Samčo, brat dážďoviek and DJ Karma je zdarma will show why tradition can be a good thing.
Traditions in non-musical events
The accompanying programme includes non-musical events related to Traditions such as the reading/performance Tale-teller’s comeback. Since Slovak fairy-tale heritage seems rather close to everything our society deems strange and unsettling, during the 14th Fest Anča a travelling tale-teller will return to Žilina and tell captivating stories on the city’s streets.
In her lecture And they lived happily ever aft…, Barbara Storchová, Ph.D., from the Institute of Ethnology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, will examine folk fairy tales, with special attention to their universal plot scheme – courting and winning a partner’s heart. She will deconstruct courting from various perspectives and approaches, such as sociohistorical and anthropological analysis, psychological interpretations, and feminist criticism. The lecture is organised in cooperation with Kapitalks. Joseph Beuys and the environment is organised in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. Slovak painter and performer Robo Švarc will present the basic premises of Beuys’ environmental and social artistic activism, seek to update its aspects to global climate development, and locate it within the framework of Slovak traditions. The lecture is part of the year-long Beyus will be Beyus project organised by the Goethe-Institut on the occasion of Joseph Beuys’ centenary.
About Fest Anča
Fest Anča International Animation Festival is the only Slovak multimedia festival focused on animated film targeted mainly at a mature audience. The festival presents contemporary progressive animated films and classic gems of the genre and aims to raise awareness about animated film as an autonomous art form, and to educate about multiple types and aspects of animation.
Fest Anča International Animation Festival 2021 is financially supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and LITA Fund. Traditions, Fest Anča’s 2021 thematic focus is an implementation of the Student Forum Fest Anča.
The Student Forum Fest Anča benefits from a € 120 609 grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants. The project has been co-financed from the State Budget of the Slovak Republic in the amount of € 18 091. The aim of the project is better approaches towards training in animation and multicultural European cooperation.