CEE Animation

by Britt Raes

CEE Animation Experience webinar dedicated to Keep Festive, a new international initiative committed to creating safer, more inclusive environments at animation industry events. Guest speakers Aneta Ozorek and Anastasiya Verlinska, representing member festivals behind the initiative, will present its core values, practical tools, and real-world protocols developed to prevent sexual harassment and unsafe situations. From establishing a Code of Conduct to training staff and managing sensitive cases, this session will explore ways organizers and festival professionals can foster respectful and supportive industry events.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Alissa Aubenque, Adrien Roche

The Green Animation Guide was released at this year’s MIFA and is the first international reference guide for sustainable practices in animation. It provides peer-driven actionable recommendations tailored to the specific needs of studios, producers and artists, enabling them to implement meaningful changes adapted to their realities. The guide is a collaborative effort led by Ecoprod, Green Film and Cine Regio with the support of several regional film funds.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Daniel Beňovič

Daniel Beňovič is a 3D Animator & Technical Artist based in Slovakia, with background in motion graphics and animation, having created ads for major brands and television. His experience in animation has transitioned into the gaming industry, where he now focuses on enhancing rigging and animation at Nine Rocks Games. Utilizing skills in Autodesk Maya and scripting, Daniel contributes to the game Way of the Hunter.

• Making of

by Martin Smatana

In this webinar, award-winning stop-motion director Martin Smatana (The Kite, Berlinale 2019) will take you on a deep dive into the creative applications of artificial intelligence in animation. Known for his hands-on work with textile and paper, Martin will explore how AI can complement traditional artistry. He’ll showcase various tools such as Dall-E, and Runway, offering practical insights into how these technologies can aid in generating ideas, optimizing workflows, automating tasks, and enhancing creative processes. Whether you’re designing storyboards, generating visuals, or working on sound design, this session will give you concrete strategies to integrate AI into your animation projects, helping you streamline repetitive tasks while maintaining your unique artistic voice.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Bára Anna Stejskalová

A candid discussion between a director and a producer on the challenges and triumphs of creating a stop-motion musical. Featuring acclaimed director Bára Anna Stejskalová (Love Is Just a Death Away, 9 Million Colors) and Emmy Award-winning producer Jakub Košťál (Bionaut Animation, CZ), the session will dive into the intricacies of the genre, touching on topics like working with directors of photography, navigating budgets, overcoming production setbacks, and handling very tricky puppets. It’s an honest talk about the highs and lows of stop-motion filmmaking.

• Musical
• Fantasy
• Making of

The Poliektova sisters will speak about transforming the initial idea of a story into a film, about the process of initial artwork, visuals and storyboarding. What are the important questions in the story and how can we create the main character?

• Making of

The topic of this lecture is to provoke the audience into being more sensitive to their everyday surroundings and to take note of precious material for their work (in any form) in small, rarely noticed phenomena, situations, objects, and movements. Ideas are not far from us. We often just need to change the angle from which we are looking at apparently mundane things. In addition, I will suggest a few games that could become ways of turning the slow and sometimes overwhelming process of animation (frame by frame by frame after one more frame…) into something more playful, even adventurous.

• Making of

The multiple award-winning Daniel Gray will present his newest short animation, HIDE which started its festival circuit at Ottawa and continued at Montreal, Clermont-Ferrand, Zagreb and Krakow. Now, Daniel, the writer and director and Bella Szederkényi, his producer will reveal what’s behind the door and will share the story of creating HIDE from its conception, development, finding partners, pitching failing, pitching succeeding, residencies, pre-production, production, post-production, sound recording challenges, life complications and its afterlife at the festivals.

• Making of

How can we adapt an animated film project for the game industry? Roman Vizvary presents the work principles of the company Butterfly Effect, which is involved in the field of developing games and applications on assigned topics. The writers of the successful TV series and TV special “MIMI AND LISA” compare the approaches used for animated works and for games.

• Making of

Júlia Farkas is the first Hungarian artist who made a short for Adult Swim Smalls, a series dedicated to young artists who can realize their own vision. Júlia is an animation film director who is also an accomplished art teacher and active in the field of new media, her popular gifs have reached more than 2 billion views on her Giphy’s site. In this masterclass Juli will tell us about how to create an auteur animation even if it is a commissioned work. She will tell us how she came up with the initial idea, how to experiment during the production and let new ideas be born even in the later stages and how can you fit these into the original concept. Afterwards, she will examine why the extra short films and animation go well together and why it is interesting to work in this format and how a strange surreal humor feeds her work. She will also tell about the new challenge she faced, when she started to explore the relationship between the visuals and creative sound design.

• Making of

by Britt Raes

CEE Animation Experience webinar dedicated to Keep Festive, a new international initiative committed to creating safer, more inclusive environments at animation industry events. Guest speakers Aneta Ozorek and Anastasiya Verlinska, representing member festivals behind the initiative, will present its core values, practical tools, and real-world protocols developed to prevent sexual harassment and unsafe situations. From establishing a Code of Conduct to training staff and managing sensitive cases, this session will explore ways organizers and festival professionals can foster respectful and supportive industry events.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Alissa Aubenque, Adrien Roche

The Green Animation Guide was released at this year’s MIFA and is the first international reference guide for sustainable practices in animation. It provides peer-driven actionable recommendations tailored to the specific needs of studios, producers and artists, enabling them to implement meaningful changes adapted to their realities. The guide is a collaborative effort led by Ecoprod, Green Film and Cine Regio with the support of several regional film funds.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Daniel Beňovič

Daniel Beňovič is a 3D Animator & Technical Artist based in Slovakia, with background in motion graphics and animation, having created ads for major brands and television. His experience in animation has transitioned into the gaming industry, where he now focuses on enhancing rigging and animation at Nine Rocks Games. Utilizing skills in Autodesk Maya and scripting, Daniel contributes to the game Way of the Hunter.

• Making of

by Martin Smatana

In this webinar, award-winning stop-motion director Martin Smatana (The Kite, Berlinale 2019) will take you on a deep dive into the creative applications of artificial intelligence in animation. Known for his hands-on work with textile and paper, Martin will explore how AI can complement traditional artistry. He’ll showcase various tools such as Dall-E, and Runway, offering practical insights into how these technologies can aid in generating ideas, optimizing workflows, automating tasks, and enhancing creative processes. Whether you’re designing storyboards, generating visuals, or working on sound design, this session will give you concrete strategies to integrate AI into your animation projects, helping you streamline repetitive tasks while maintaining your unique artistic voice.

• Documentary
• Making of

by Bára Anna Stejskalová

A candid discussion between a director and a producer on the challenges and triumphs of creating a stop-motion musical. Featuring acclaimed director Bára Anna Stejskalová (Love Is Just a Death Away, 9 Million Colors) and Emmy Award-winning producer Jakub Košťál (Bionaut Animation, CZ), the session will dive into the intricacies of the genre, touching on topics like working with directors of photography, navigating budgets, overcoming production setbacks, and handling very tricky puppets. It’s an honest talk about the highs and lows of stop-motion filmmaking.

• Musical
• Fantasy
• Making of

The Poliektova sisters will speak about transforming the initial idea of a story into a film, about the process of initial artwork, visuals and storyboarding. What are the important questions in the story and how can we create the main character?

• Making of

AnimatekaPRO is the Animateka festival platform for animation professionals and students. It was conceived as a place where one can learn about the latest trends, be updated on the latest developments, and meet exciting film professionals while exploring the fantastic world of animated film. As a part of AnimatekaPRO, for the fourth consecutive year, the AnimatekaPRO Pitch competition for projects in development will give an insight into the state of animation in ex-Yugoslav countries.

• Making of

The topic of this lecture is to provoke the audience into being more sensitive to their everyday surroundings and to take note of precious material for their work (in any form) in small, rarely noticed phenomena, situations, objects, and movements. Ideas are not far from us. We often just need to change the angle from which we are looking at apparently mundane things. In addition, I will suggest a few games that could become ways of turning the slow and sometimes overwhelming process of animation (frame by frame by frame after one more frame…) into something more playful, even adventurous.

• Making of

The multiple award-winning Daniel Gray will present his newest short animation, HIDE which started its festival circuit at Ottawa and continued at Montreal, Clermont-Ferrand, Zagreb and Krakow. Now, Daniel, the writer and director and Bella Szederkényi, his producer will reveal what’s behind the door and will share the story of creating HIDE from its conception, development, finding partners, pitching failing, pitching succeeding, residencies, pre-production, production, post-production, sound recording challenges, life complications and its afterlife at the festivals.

• Making of

In this webinar producer Martin Jůza from the Czech animation studio Krutart will tell you the story of the animated series Kosmix and what steps they had to take to produce 2 seasons of their home-grown IP. How they had to change their mindset, what they lost the most money on and what mistakes they made so that you don’t have to repeat them.

• Making of