Russia’s Largest Animation Festival – Big Cartoon Festival – Call for Entries
Skwigly
The Big Cartoon Festival (BCF) — the largest international animation film festival in Russia — will take place in Moscow for the 15th time from October 28 to November 8, 2021. The Festival is planned to be held in the traditional in-person format; however, if necessary, the Festival team will be ready to transfer some of the events or all festival sessions to a dedicated online platform.
In 2020, for the first time in its history, BCF organized competitions of Russian and international animated films, which were judged by professional juries. We received over 1,500 applications from 89 countries; 185 animation works were selected for competition.
In 2021, the Big Cartoon Festival will include competition programs for the second time. In addition to independent short films from Russia and countries around the world, the Festival juries will separately evaluate episodes of animated series and films for children. Three juries will work at the next edition of the Festival: the first jury will judge the international competition, the second one — the Russian competition, while the tasks of the third jury will include choosing the best episode of a series and the best children’s cartoon from the international competition.
For many years we had remained an out-of-competition festival, and only last year for the first time we put together an official competition program with an international jury on the BCF platform. It was a very encouraging experience that allowed us to see and to show to our viewers very new and very different films, part of which had not had an extended festival history behind them. This year we are expanding the competition program to include children’s films and series, as well as adding a separate prize for non-narrative
films.Maria Tereschenko, BFC Program Director
Based on the results of the work of the juries, the following prizes will be awarded at the Festival’s closing ceremony:
In the International Competition of animated films
- GRAND PRIХ for Best Short Animated Film
- AWARD for Best Student Animated Film
- AWARD for Best Non-narrative Animated Film
- Special Jury Prize
In the Russian Competition of animated films
- AWARD for Best Russian Short Animated Film
- AWARD for Best Russian Student Animated Film
- AWARD for Best Russian Animated Film for Children
Special Jurys Prize
- In the International Children’s Films Competition
AWARD for Best Animated Film for Children
In the International TV Shows Competition
- AWARD for Best Episode of TV Show (under 12 y.o.)
- AWARD for Best Episode of TV Show (over 12 y.o.)
In addition, journalists and critics working at the Festival will award the Critics Choice Award, and the BCF Management will give out their own prize. And, of course, the Festival cannot do without the Audience Choice Award, one of the main awards for our festival and one highly valued by the
directors.
It will be possible to submit an application for the Festival from May 1 to June 30, 2021. Films are accepted through the FilmFreeWay platform: https://filmfreeway.com/BigCartoonFestival-2021.
The results of the selection will be announced no later than August 10 (for international competitions) and August 24 (for the Russian competition). The full program of the BCF-2021 will appear on the Festival’s official website at the end of September 2021. Program Directors of the Big Cartoon Festival are Dina Goder and Maria Tereschenko. Strategic Partner of the Festival is the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.
The Festival is held with the support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian