Theme of this year’s Anifilm: Where is My Home?

The accompanying programme of this year’s Anifilm will be dedicated to the phenomenon of migration. This broad theme is not supposed to be just a reaction to the current migrant influx – in our concept, the issue of migration is much wider and also includes the partial motives such as political and economic exile, the issue of human identity, the search for one’s roots and the ephemerality of geographic borders. The selection of guests naturally reflects the Czech experience so we can trace a connection to our country in the lives of most of our guests. Another level is our lecture and film programme which will include reflections of individual aspects of migration and related phenomena as well as contemporary topical reflections of the migration crisis.
Also our jury members were selected with the festival’s theme in mind. “Czech footprints” in the world are represented by Jan Pinkava, Czech graphic artist and director who left Czechoslovakia with his parents in the late 1960s, Vera Neubauer, who was born and studied in Prague, Zlín-native Jakub Pistecký, who emigrated to Canada with his family, as did Ondřej Švadlena. Another member of our jury will be Dutch artist Rosto, whose grandfather was Czech.
Unfortunately, not all of the guests invited can visit our festival in person, so we will remember some of them through their animated films. Let us mention for example the work of Paul Fierlinger. He was born in Japan to Czech parents, grew up in the United States and after the war moved to Czechoslovakia to defect back West in the second half of the 1960s. Anifilm will present his personal films looking back on his troubled past as well as the premiere of his latest film Slocum at Sea with Himself co-directed with Sandra Fierlinger.