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Russia’s Big Cartoon Festival 2021 is Coming Soon in Moscow and Online

// Festival News

Skwigly



The Big Cartoon Festival will screen 350 animated films by authors from all over the world on the online platform multfest.online from October 28 to November 8. The platform visitors will have an opportunity to take part in more than 20 conferences with both Russian and foreign competition participants held by Dina Goder and Maria Tereshchenko, the festival’s program directors.

The traditional offline version of the festival taking place in cinemas and other venues in Moscow will be held on December 1–15. The visitors will be able to enjoy full-length premieres from France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Japan. Besides, we are going to have meetings with animation artists, a talk about puppets by Yuri Norshtein, workshops and other activities.

Subscription

The viewers can buy access to all online festival programs till November 2 for 890 Rub or access from November 2–8 for 590 Rub. There are special discounts for animation professionals, students, large families, and physically impaired people. The subscription allows you to watch cartoons from any part of Russia. Besides, more than 30 animated films created at most famous Russian studios can be accessed for free after you have registered with the platform. One online ticket is enough to watch cartoons for 12 days in a row together with your whole family!

Competition Program  

It’s the second year running, when the Big Cartoon Festival goes beyond showing animated films to host an animation competition. This year, there are as many as two competitions — the international and the national ones, each judged by a professional jury. Out of 1,500 applications, the judging panel has chosen the best 200 animated films — all of them will be offered to cartoon-lovers during the festival so that they can support their favourite films.  The Competition Program includes several awards — for the best student film, for the best animated series, for the best cartoon for children, and for the best professional animated film. The festival is proud to be hosting films by world-class animation stars, among who there are:

  • Joanna Quinn, an Oscar Award nominee, who comes back to the world of animation after a years’ break with her Affairs of the Art. The film tells us a story about Beryl, the eccentric character that is well-known from Joanna Quinn’s previous films and beloved by the viewers, who decides to go in for modern art but is not sure where to begin with.
  • Koji Yamamura, a Japanese artist, with his new film Polar Bear Bears Boredom. Mr Yamamura is a star of Japanese original animation. His previous films brought him Grand Prix of such professional festivals as the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (which is often called “Cannes Festival in animated films”) and Animafest Zagreb; besides, some of them were nominated for Oscar.
  • Ivan Maksimov, a Russian artist, will compete with his new Oh, Noo! film — a collection of funny short stories on awkward situations. He is not only the author of popular MTV Channel bumpers, but also a manifold nominee for the Nika Award and the Golden Eagle Award, and the owner of the Berlinale Golden Bear Award.

Full-length Program

Full-length films stand out against shorts that make up the majority of the festival program. This year, the Big Cartoon Festival will screen more than 10 full-length films.

There is a special program, a tribute to the festival’s 15th anniversary, which will showcase 10 full-length films of different genres, from documentaries to music fantasies, which both the organizers and the cartoon-lovers considered the best of the best within these 15 years. All these films are award-winners, and many of them can be enjoyed only during the festival.

Special Programs

The organizers of the Big Cartoon Festival understand how difficult it might be to choose the films to watch out of 350 stories! That’s why they created special topic-related programs.

This year, there are five such programs to enjoy:

  • Two documentary animation programs. The Big Cartoon Festival has been compiling a doc animation program for the past few years already. This genre of animation is becoming more popular, and film directors are getting more awards in this field. For instance, Bastien Dubois with his Souvenir, souvenir based on his grandfather’s memories on the war in Algeria is nominated for the Cesar Award. The Big Cartoon Festival will screen this film within the Personal Stories doc program. Another documentary animation program is called What Bothers Us and uncovers the acute topics of ecology, migration, homelessness etc.
  • Behind the Fence is a collection of stories about mental health. Here you will see an animated film made of wire about a psychoneurological institution, a paper and clay sketch about bipolar disease, a puppet animated film about a school admitting an autistic boy and so much more.
  • It’s not the first time when the Big Cartoon Festival features its Only For Women dedicated to feminist agenda. This year’s program includes not only stories about the woman body like periods, birth control, breast cancer, hard motherhood, and the woman appearance, but also stories about woman protest against objectivation, against being perceived as a numb source of satisfaction or a machine for child birth. One of the major films in this program is a jam by students from the Lodz Film School calling for backing up Polish women against the new abortion law.
  • New animated films from Israel. Thе festival made up a program consisting of Israeli animated films as a tribute to 30 years of diplomatic relationships between Russia and Israel. It contains the most recent short films, among which you can find works both by renowned directors and student films.

For Children

Within the festival, the films are divided in programs not only by topics but also by age, each having their own age sign.

The Russian competition marked 6+ features films about brackets, about friendship between a girl and Tiger, about Walter the Sheep who dreams of becoming a cloud and many others; whereas the 12+ program includes stories about a romantic security guard at a marriage registry office, an animated poem by the famous Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, and a music video for the recent song by Mummy Troll music band.

Apart from the competition of new animated films for children which can be enjoyed by online subscription, the festival will traditionally screen three free out-of-competition programs (marked 0+ and 6+).

Retrospective of films by Maria Muat 

Each year, the Big Cartoon Festival hosts a retrospective of an animation director. This year commemorated the 70th anniversary of Maria Muat, one of the brightest stars in Russian puppet animation. She began as a director at a puppet theatre, studied at the Russian Theater Art Academy under the legend of Sergei Obraztsov, then left for cinematography — she is the author of series of tales about Uncle Au, KOAPP, Amorous Crow etc. In the post-Soviet years, Maria Muat took part in the famous British projects which particularly recognized the artisanship of Russian puppet-makers: for the Shakespearean Cycle, she created one of the best comedies — the Twelfth Night, and for the Folk Tales Cycle is was the Arabian legend called Crown and Scepter. The year 2007 marked an important turning point in Maria Muat’s life — she established Pchela Animation Studio that is still an important springboard into the world of Russian original animation.

Meetings with animated films directors

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