Animest.21 Starts Today! 10 Days of Animated Urban Nature: International Premieres, Masterclasses and Special Guests in Bucharest

Today, Bucharest returns to its coveted status as Europe's capital of animated film: until Sunday, October 11, the Animest International Animation Festival is taking over the city's best-known cinema and cultural venues: Cinema Elvire Popesco, the Peasant Museum Cinema, Eforie Cinematheque, Instituto Cervantes, CINETic, and Goethe-Institut.

 

The 21st edition of Animest kicks off on Friday, October 2, at 7 PM, at the Peasant Museum Cinema, with the national premiere of Viva, Carmen!, introduced by French producer Pierre-Henri Léon. Set in Seville in 1845, the production is a spectacularly energetic musical reimagining of the classic opera, in which the fate of the famous Carmen is rewritten with the help of a fearless band of street children. The premiere is the start of ten days packed with brand-new screenings, internationally award-winning productions, creative workshops for children and professionals, VR experiences, and high-caliber industry talks with filmmakers from around the world.

 

Browse the full schedule online on animest.ro and on the Animest app (Android & iOS). Buy your tickets and festival passes on Eventbook!

 

Nature as a living ecosystem, always moving, always changing – this is our thematic thread this autumn. The three short film blocks selected by Mihai Mitrică, alongside French film historian Alexis Hunot – What a Wonderful World, Human Nature and Mother Nature's Son – promise a visual journey through utopias, dystopias, and reimagined landscapes, exploring the fragile relationship between humankind and the environment. To this, we’ve added must-see screenings of landmark feature films, including the ecological fable Pom Poko (directed by Isao Takahata), the British classic Watership Down (directed by Martin Rosen, John Hubley) and the delightful animated adventure Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants (directed by Hélène Giraud and Thomas Szabo).

 

Keeping with the nature theme, the foyer of the Peasant Museum Cinema will host, starting from Sunday, October 4, at 11 AM through the end of the edition, an open Plant Swap corner, where animation (and plant) lovers can bring a plant and adopt another to take home.

 

Our youngest viewers continue to be our focus in the beloved Minimest section: cozy weekend mornings at the cinema for the whole family, a short film competition judged exclusively by kids, and creative animation and comic book workshops. We’re also bringing back the Minimest Kids’ Corner, a space full of color and games at the Peasant Museum Cinema, where you can spend some quality time before or after screenings. Among the most anticipated animated features for all ages are The Girl in the Clouds (directed by Philippe Riche), The Songbirds’ Secret (directed by Antoine Lanciaux), and Born in the Jungle, whose screening will be held in the presence of director Edmunds Jansons, who’ll stay on to share behind-the-scenes stories afterward. A special moment in the program is the Saturday, October 3 screening of the feature Brave Cat (directed by Gabriel Osorio, winner of the Audience Award at Annecy 2026), as all ticket proceeds from it will be donated to Urme de Bucurie – Save the Dogs Association. The full Minimest schedule is online, here.

 

We’re also celebrating teenagers' voices, on Sunday, October 4, at 4.30 PM, with the special screening Fresh Frames at the Peasant Museum Cinema – a selection of nine short films authored by high schoolers from Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

Animest continues its mission of cultural inclusion and making cinema accessible to diverse audiences through a dedicated series of events. This year’s schedule includes three screenings made accessible through descriptive subtitling, audio description via headphones, or Romanian sign language interpretation – the features Born in the Jungle and Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants, alongside a selection of short films – rounded out by a relaxed animation workshop. We will also delve deeper into this topic on Sunday, October 11, at the Goethe-Institut, during the Festivals Without Barriers round table, which will bring together organizers and specialists from Bucharest, Timișoara, and Iași in order to lay the groundwork for a future national guide for accessible festivals.

 

Through this year's programs dedicated to the Guest Country, Guest Studio, Guest Festival and Guest School, Animest is connecting Romania with Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland, and Czechia, offering audiences an immersive exploration of Europe's lush, ever-growing animation ecosystem. Join us as we dip into the new Mediterranean wave through the dedicated Guest Country focus on Cyprus, curated alongside the team of the Animafest Cyprus Festival – which is celebrating 25 years of existence – and witness the eight decades of mastery of the legendary FAMU school in Prague. Our celebration of international animation will continue with the strong independent auteur productions by Lithuanian studio ART SHOT, represented in Bucharest by its founder, producer Agnė Adomėnė, a member of the International Short Film Competition jury and expert in the Consistency Matters masterclass (October 9, 11 AM). The itinerary is rounded out by a healthy dose of energetic Polish animation, served on Bucharest screens by the O!PLA Festival, represented by its director, Piotr Kardas, part of the International Feature Film jury and expert within the How I Became a Spider in the World of Animation masterclass (October 7, 2 PM). All screenings, talks, and masterclasses dedicated to these special programs are hosted by Instituto Cervantes.

 

Animation fans will get to meet a remarkable community of creators and special guests from abroad. Some of the most anticipated guests are directors Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Guigue, creators of the satirical feature film Blaise (participating in the International Competition), adapted from the cult series aired on the Franco-German channel ARTE. Guigue’s portfolio includes landmark titles such as Persepolis, while Planchon hails from the great tradition of French satirical comic art. Joining them in Bucharest is Finnish director Jenny Jokela, winner of the 2025 Animest Grand Trophy (Dollhouse Elephant), known for her hand-painted universe and animations created for Coldplay, the BBC, and Disney; researcher Anastasia Dimitra (Greece), president of ASIFA International; and acclaimed Belgian animator Mathieu Labaye, lead animator on the major international successes directed by Anca Damian (Marona's Fantastic Tale, The Island, Motherhood). On Friday, October 9, at 12.30 PM, at Instituto Cervantes, Mathieu will facilitate the From Real Life to Animation masterclass, exploring how the continuous, profound sensations of human existence can be captured by an artistic process that is, by definition, discontinuous.

 

Other treasured guests include Spanish directors María Lorenzo Hernández (Microcosmos) and María Manero Muro (With Coffee), Hungarian filmmaker Zsuzsanna Kreif (Adgwa-Ata), Spanish-French artist Inés Sedan (Cocoon), and Estonian auteur Kaspar Jancis (Penguin), among many more. From Tuesday to Friday, starting at 4 PM, drop by Instituto Cervantes for the Meet the Artists meetings to talk directly and informally with the filmmakers behind the festival's films.

 

Also at Instituto Cervantes, come by for landmark presentations and case studies, such as the secrets of independent video game development in The Making of Bear and Breakfast (October 7, 11 AM) or illustrator Tuan Nini's masterclass, Animest to Annecy: How One Little Passion Project Opened Up an Introvert's World (October 8, 11 AM). Also on Thursday, October 8, we’re looking forward to the final pitches from participants in the Toon Scripts and Pitch, Please! programs.

 

Between October 3-11, CINETic will be open daily for you to explore new, interactive technologies. Come by to enjoy the VR competition, the only one of its kind in Romania (between 12-7.30 PM), and this year’s new addition, our showcase dedicated to local game developers, Animest Playground (open daily between 12-8.30 PM, free admission).

 

The festival's atmosphere couldn’t be complete without its traditional White Nights: the avant-garde marathon Trippy Animation Night, curated by Dutchman Michael Helmerhorst (Saturday, October 3); the bold, prejudice-free Erotica – The Night of Erotic Animation, curated by Slovak Jakub Spevák (Tuesday, October 6); the visual rhythm of the Animusic Night competition (Thursday, October 8); and the thrills of the much-anticipated Creepy Animation Night (Friday, October 9).

 

Animest remains the only film event in Romania that qualifies films for the Academy Awards' eligibility list, a status that will be enjoyed by the winners of two of the seven competition sections: International Short Film and Romanian Short Film. This year's competition selection brings together 98 international productions across the feature film, short film, student film, and VR sections, alongside 10 vibrant shorts screened in the Romanian Competition. The winners of all sections will be celebrated at the Closing Gala on Saturday, October 10, starting at 7 PM, at Cinema Elvire Popesco.

 

The festival will close on Sunday, October 11, with a screening marathon of all of the edition's award-winning films.

 

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The Animest Festival is a project of the Animest Association, co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN).

This project does not officially represent the AFCN’s stance, nor may AFCN be held responsible for the festival’s content or outcomes – these are fully under the beneficiary’s responsibility.

 

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Institutional Partners: Romanian Cultural Institute, French Institute and Embassy of France, Instituto Cervantes, Liszt Institute – Hungarian Cultural Center in Bucharest, Goethe-Institut, Polish Institute, Austrian Cultural Forum, Romanian Peasant Museum, AFN – Animation Festival Network, UNATC – I.L. Caragiale National University of Theater and Film Arts, UCIN – Romanian Filmmakers' Union

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