At the end of January, selection committee of the International Film Festival Anifilm convened to go through almost 1300 films and chose films for the upcoming festival. The committee spent dozens of hours watching various films and eventually shortlisted 128 of them (roughly a 10 % extract of the most interesting films). The complete list of selected films you can find here.
Features' category dominated by France
This year’s Anifilm main competition section is bound to include Charlie Kaufman’s excursion to the world of animation Anomalisa. But the award can also go to the Spanish surprise Psiconautas, the Forgotten Children by Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vázquez. The category is however dominated by the traditional animation power. Six out of ten competing films are produced and co-produced in France. They include the film April and the Extraordinary World inspired by the world of the renowned French comics artist Jacques Tardi, then movies Phantom Boy and Long Way North – films representing typical graphically refined style of French animation. Another film included in our competition is Anca Darmian’s collage docudrama Magic Mountain. Two of the competition films take place during the World War I.:Cafard and Adama. Czech animation is represented by Jan Bubeníček and his film Murderous Tales. And last but not least, a representative of Japanese anime, a film by Mamoru Hosoda The Boy and the Beast.