Animateka
The goal of the annual festival is to showcase animation production from Central and Eastern European countries to both the Slovene public, foreign guests and animated film professionals invited to Ljubljana. The festival is establishing a space where authors, producers, journalists, students and other interested parties will meet and exchange their ideas and experiences.
We think it important to stress the role of the author, so already for the first edition of the festival we decided that the international jury will choose the best film, with a prize which will go directly to the chosen winning filmmaker. Since the 2005 edition of the festival, we decided to give away also an Audience Award. In five festival days in 2005 we had almost 1.800 visitors.
The festival already brought a fresh breeze to the almost non-existing Slovene animation film community and we are sure that in the upcoming years it will help the Slovenian authors and students to express their ideas through films! Since in Slovenia there is still no animation film school, we will continue to improve the initial base of the animation workshop we started in the first 2004 edition.
The desire to start the Animateka festival originated foremost from the enthusiasm for animated films shown by the Slovene Cinematheque audience at the regular monthly animation film screenings. Quality animation film is almost impossible to find in Slovenia, so we are building up our audience from 1998 and every year the number is growing. The majority of the audience is composed of students, but we pay attention also to children and adults. During the year Animateka takes a form of a monthly animation screening with occasional lectures and discussions (with the authors’ presence). This gave us a good chance to be in touch with our public all the time. In the time of the festival, the public of course grows due to broad media coverage and the festive mood of the festival. Another important aspect aimed at raising the audience’s interest towards animation, are the discussions with the authors that are held regularly during the festival.
The festival was and will be held at the Kinodvor cinema theatre. A completely renovated and technologically upgraded cinema centre, located in the building of an old Ljubljana cinema near the central railway station, serves as a sanctuary for all those motion picture lovers who want to escape the pressures of mainstream cinema.
