Minimest returns to Animest.19 with family-friendly stories and animation workshops for kids

MI-NI-MEST is back!

During the Animest International Animation Film Festival, we love offering our youngest fans entire universes to explore and untangle life lessons in. During October 4-13, 2024, Minimest returns with special screenings, an official kids’ jury, workshops for animation, comics and artistic recycling, as well as charming suggestions for weekend mornings spent at the cinema with the entire family.

This year’s short films for kids cover a wide range of locations and languages, bringing them together through charismatic characters that you are bound to empathize with. By showing humanity’s biggest challenges through children’s perspectives and proposing novel takes on difficult topics, animation builds bridges to communication and compromise, to kind solutions that are easy to understand.

Enjoy the Minimest 2024 teaser trailer:

During the festival, head on over to the Minimest Kids Corner at the Eforie Cinematheque – a colorful hub offering games and fun for kids and their accompanying adults alike.

Minimest – The Children’s Film Competition

A record 24 short films from 20 countries are running for the Minimest Award, presided over by a jury consisting of children. This year the prize is offered by ASAP Romania, The Institute Foundation’s corporate social responsibility program.

This year’s Minimest menu features both major studio work and student projects, all delving into slices of life: emotions, tech addiction, abuse, how someone’s challenges reverberate within their family, the refugee experience, tolerance, and the importance of friendship.

Family fun on weekend mornings

Festival weekend mornings are not only for films competing in the Minimest section. They’re for animated stories that have already made the rounds at international festivals and that Bucharest audiences are sure to enjoy. From the Berlin International Film Festival comes Fox and Hare Save the Forest (directed by Mascha Halberstad), a captivating adventure featuring a rescue mission of the heroes’ friend Owl, a lake that suddenly appears, and saving the forest from a flood. Catch the film again in Romanian cinemas starting in November, courtesy of Bad Unicorn distribution.

Remember Dounia, the Syrian girl displaced by the war, whose magical journey we followed in 2023’s Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo? Join us for the Romanian premiere of Dounia – The Great White North, also directed by André Kadi and Marya Zarif, to witness Dounia’s adventures in her new home, Canada, where she’s faced with the challenge of preserving her identity and culture while also integrating into her Canadian community and creating a new path in life.

Disney|PIXAR’s Soul (directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers) captured the imaginations of many when it came out in 2020: voiced by stars such as Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey and Graham Norton, the film follows a jazz-loving middle school band teacher who travels to another realm to help someone find their passion – and discovers what it actually means to have soul.

Stinky Dog, Happy Life in Paris! is another potential family favorite. Directed by Davy Durand, Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier, this 2020 romp follows Chien Pourri (Stinky) and his faithful gutter companion Chaplapla, who walk the streets of Paris, sowing trouble and yet always getting out out it – so much so that other dogs are getting suspicious… Many thanks to the French Institute in Bucharest for their support in organizing this screening.

Workshops for curious kids who like animation

During both Animest.19 weekends, 2D animation artist Nicoleta Miron returns to Minimest with two interactive workshops. On October 5 and 6, children aged 9-12 are invited to a stop-motion animation workshop where they’ll build an entire story using Lego pieces. On October 12 and 13, kids aged 6-8 will use plasticine to recreate their favorite characters in Minimest films they saw – and then imagine new adventures for them!

“To embark on exploring animation and imaginative storytelling, you always need good cheer and a commitment to creativity. Through these workshops, I want to encourage children to be open and express their emotions, to share with them the joy of bringing feelings, stories and ideas to life, for all the world to experience too,” says Nicoleta Miron.

During the first Animest weekend, kiddos also have abstract animation workshops in store, organized with support from the Cervantes Institute, while the second weekend promises two workshops in partnership with ASAP Romania, during which artist Anna Florea will guide children as they create their first comic. All this fun is not just for the weekend! During October 7-10, kids aged 12-15 may join a sustainable art workshop facilitated by Nikki Schuster, who is traveling to Animest.19 from Berlin to help the participants uncover new perspectives of their city – and how even mundane objects can be reinvented through artistic recycling. Many thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum for their support for this weekday event.

Full scheduling and registration details soon, on the Animest website.

Films made accessible for the d/Deaf and the hard-of-hearing

This year, the usual weekend Minimest schedule will be enriched with films made accessible for the hearing impaired, as part of our Eyes and Ears program supported by the Orange Foundation.

Accessible films will include shorts curated by the AFN – Animation Festival Network, as well as two feature films. On October 11, at Cinema Elvire Popesco, catch The Inventor (directed by Jim Capobianco and Pierre-Luc Granjon), a stop-motion animation about Leonardo da Vinci nominated at the 2024 Annie Awards and the Annecy official competition. All accesibilized screenings will have Romanian descriptive subtitles (SDH) and interpretation in Romanian sign language. Also part of Cinema without Barriers, the European accessibility project of the French Institute in Romania.

The Inventor will also be screened outside of the Minimest section in its unaccesibilized version, with adapted subtitles suitable for kids. Both screenings will happen in the presence of the co-director. The film is distributed across Romania by YAY Films.

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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, Liszt Institute – The Hungarian Cultural Center, The Czech Center, UNATC – The “I.L. Caragiale” National University of Theater and Film, the Animation Festival Network (AFN)

Partners: Groupama, Ogilvy

Minimest Partner: ASAP Romania

Main Media Partners: VOYO, PRO TV

As Heard On: Radio Guerrilla

Media Partners: Itsy Bitsy, 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