International Competition of Animated Feature Films for Grown-ups

Tatsumi celebrates the life and work of Japanese comic book author Yoshihiro Tatsumi. In occupied post-war Japan, young Tatsumi’s passion for graphic novels eventually becomes a means of supporting his poor family. Talented Tatsumi finds even greater inspiration after meeting his idol, famous Disneyesque animator Osamu Tezuka. Despite his steady success, Tatsumi begins to question why Japanese comic books should cater to children with cute and whimsical tales and drawings. In 1957, Tatsumi coins the term gekiga (dramatic pictures) and redefines the manga landscape by encouraging an alternative genre for adults. Realistic and disquieting, Tatsumi’s work begins to grapple with the darker aspects of life...

Based on the famous graphic novel, the story is set in Algiers in the 1920s. The rabbi Sfar lives with his daughter Zlabya, a noisy parrot and a mischievous cat that eats the parrot and gains ability of speech. The Rabbi who wants to get rid of the cat receives a notice that he’ll have to pass a test in French to keep his position. The cat gives a helping paw, but looses his virtue. Their new friend, a Russian painter who hopes to find the Jerusalem of Africa, then succeeds in convincing the rabbi, a wise old Arab Sheikh, an eccentric Russian billionaire and the cat to set
off on an incredibly adventurous journey with him.

A satiric animated feature based on a cult Polish comic strip about an urban Hedgehog named George who gets in trouble. 

George the Hedgehog, a notorious womanizer and big fan of skateboarding and couple of pints after hours becomes a key point in the master plan of a genetic manipulations freak. The crazy scientist hires two deadly enemies of George, skinheads Zenek and Stefan. Their job is to get hold of George’s genes in order to create the Hedgehog’s clone. After some secret laboratory work the clone is born and quickly becomes a celebrity, severely complicating George’s life and ruining his reputation in the meantime. The Hedgehog fights back for his identity and, above all, his beloved Jola.

He was unjustly accused of stealing a card of a Polish judge when he claims he was not in the country. He tries to convince the others to listen to him and goes on a hunger strike and dies while the society is watching him. 

Animated documentary Crulic – The Path to Beyond shows the story of Crulic, a 33-year-old Romanian, who died in a Polish prison while on a hunger strike. The character of Crulic is voiced by a famous Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov who narrates the story from beyond the grave with a voice full of irony. An intense visual style, captivating hand drawn images and cut out animation technique...A mixture of all this creates a remarkable and surprisingly compact unforgettable experience.

The end of the 1980s. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at a small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech- Polish border. He’s a loner who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, seeing ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can’t seem to shake these nightmares and eventually ends up in a sanatorium. There he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…

The feature film Alois Nebel is an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name written by Jaroslav Rudiš and Jaromír 99 which combines animation and live-action in rotoscoping technique.