Ciao, Italia! Meet the masters of Italian animation at Animest.19

Every year during the Animest International Animation Film Festival, we celebrate one of the countries whose artists have continuously set and surpassed important milestones in the history of animated cinema. For our 19th edition, happening during October 4-13, 2024 in Bucharest, Romania, we are focusing on Italian animation. Join us to explore the rich, diverse universe of Italian animated film through an impressive selection of screenings, special events and guests representing both legends of the genre and contemporary creations already winning international acclaim. The spritz in the aperol? Guest studio Mad Entertainment, hailing from Napoli, will be featured in a showcase during Animest.19.

The Ciao, Italia! – Animest 2024 Guest Country program is supported by the Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest and Animaphix – International Festival of Animated Film in Sicily.

Throughout its storied history beginning on the heels of WW2, Italian animated film charmed audiences through charismatic heroes, self-irony, and depiction of real emotion and of real places – all heightened, right from the start, by nuances of neorealism. In the ‘60s, the world started tuning in, attracted by Bruno Bozzetto’s now-famous satirical and humoristic take on social issues, which resulted in over 300 animations and comics across a six decade-career. His filmography includes short films such as Tapum! La storia delle armi / Tapum! The History of Arms (1958) and Cavallette (1990), which will both be screened during the retrospective of classic Italian cinema curated by Andrea Martignoni for Animest.19. The section includes six other short films, such as Dedalo / Labyrinth (1976) and Le città invisibili / Invisible Cities (1998) directed by Manfredo Manfredi, one of the pillars of The Golden Age of Italian animation.

This year’s Animest short films selection also features ten projects which premiered in the last three years, so you can get a taste of contemporary creators in Italy, too, including L’angoscia e l’estasi / The Angst and the Bliss (directed by Mangoosta), nominated at the 2022 Raindance Film Festival in London for Best Animated Short, and Un corpo / A Body (directed by Milena Tipaldo), a darling of international film festivals and winner of the Jury Award for Best Animation at the 2022 Weimar Poetry Film Awards in Germany.

Watch the teaser trailer for the Short Films Retrospective of Ciao, Italia!:

Let’s move on to feature films, of which our dedicated Focus Italia section includes three – Allegro non troppo (directed by Bruno Bozzetto, 1976), a now-classic tongue-in-cheek parody of Walt Disney's 1940 feature film Fantasia; L'arte della felicità / The Art of Happiness (directed by Alessandro Rak, 2013), an emotional exploration of human existence and happiness, which will be screened in the presence of the director; and Invelle / Nowhere (directed by Simone Massi), a sprawling family saga of small, often forgotten, places, and large ones as well, showing how localized stories are affected by the greater geopolitical context in Europe. Massi’s monochrome ode to preserving or recreating local identity through linguistic memory, at once poetic and harsh, won in the Orizzonti section of the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and is also competing in this year’s Animest International Feature Film Competition.

Watch the teaser trailer for our Focus Italia Feature Film section:

Wondering which amazing Italian animators you can meet during Animest.19 events or screenings? Andrea Martignoni – artist, sound designer and animation historian – is part of the Feature Film and Student Film juries; Claudia Cazzato – producer and manager/programmer of VOID International Animation Film Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark – will be on the Short Film and Student Film juries; and Alessandro Rak – comic artist, writer and director – will represent this year’s guest animation studio, Mad Entertainment.

Mad Entertainment – guest animation studio at Animest.19

Every year, we showcase an international studio during our program dedicated to the animated film industry. In 2024, we’re happy to host Mad Entertainment, founded in 2010 in Napoli and based in a cinephile’s dream sightseeing location: the apartments where Vittorio de Sica filmed the famous L'Oro di Napoli / The Gold of Naples and Matrimonio all'italiana / Marriage Italian Style some 60-70 years ago. The studio works in 2D and 3D animation (commercials and videoclips, special and TV series, feature films for the cinema), documentary cinema, production and music, focusing on “two parallel tracks: independent cinema aimed at a wide audience, without age borders, and animation for the television format, then series and special tv.”

With their unique approach combining traditional and innovative techniques, the studio explores new pathways in animation, contributing, through high-quality output and international collaborations, to the development of the Italian animation industry as a whole. Their projects include feature films Gata Cenerentola / Cinderella the Cat, a 2017 nominee in the Orizzonti selection of the Venice International Film Festival, as well as documentary Fellini Degli Spiriti / Fellini of the Spirits, a part of the 2020 Cannes International Film Festival official selection.

Are you in the animation industry, or considering joining it? Come meet Mad Entertainment representative Alessandro Rak at his film’s screening or the Animest.19 event we’re dedicating to his studio.

The full Animest.19 schedule will soon be posted on our official website. Festival passes are already available on Eventbook.

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The Animest Festival is a project of the Animest Association, co-financed by the MEDIA Program of the European Union and AFCN–the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.

Institutional Partners: the Romanian Cultural Institute, The French Institute and the Embassy of France in Romania, Instituto Cervantes, the Italian Cultural Institute, The Austrian Cultural Forum, UNATC – The “I.L. Caragiale” National University of Theater and Film, the Animation Festival Network (AFN)

Main Media Partners: VOYO, PRO TV

As Heard On: Radio Guerrilla

Media Partners: Radio România Cultural, Adevărul de Weekend, Zile și Nopți, Observator Cultural, Revista BIZ, Haute Culture, IQAds, Scena9, AGERPRES, Ziarul Metropolis, Revista FILM, Mindcraft Stories, LiterNet, Movie News, CineFAN, HAPP.ro, MunteanuRecomandă, AndreeaVerde, SuntPărinte.ro

Monitoring Partner: mediaTRUST