Anima is the Brussels International Animation Film Festival, created over 30 years ago. Since then, the event has grown continuously to reach a record number of 42,000 visitors in 2016.
Anima 2017 is set to take place in Flagey, from 24 February to 5 March. Part of the festival programme will also be shown in theatres in Flanders (Ghent, Antwerp, Louvain and Genk) and Wallonia (Ath, Mons, Charleroi, Namur and Liege).
Ten days completely given over to animation, with a total of 279 films to be screened in 98 sessions, and spotlighting a national and international competition of shorts and feature films up for vote by the juries and the public. Also on the Anima bill: a selection of conferences for the Futuranima professional days and many special programmes.
This year Portugal and Italy will be the festival’s guest countries. The public will be able to get to know more about the animation production from both these countries through a programme of screenings and conferences.
New technologies have been given a particularly special place this year as Anima 2017 will be hosting the second Experience festival (Brussels Virtual Reality Festival) and conferences, as well as an installation using mapping, motion capture and augmented reality.
There’s even a little psychedelic touch to the proceedings, inspired by the Mandalas created by Brussels-based filmmaker Nicolas Fong for the Anima 2017 visuals.
The festival will kick-start with Jean-François Laguionie’s latest feature Louise in Winter while the curtains of the festival will come down with Roger Mainwood’s feature Ethel & Ernest.
This year the Festival received 1,600 submissions in the short-film category coming from around the globe.
The judges for the international competition would comprise of Remi Durin, Annette Schindler and Mark Shapiro while the national entries would be looked over by Jeroen Jaspaert, Christine Polis and Ligia Soare.