What started three years ago with an idea for a movie night with short animated films quickly grew into the one-day FluXus Animation Film Festival. At the third edition of the festival on 27 August at De Fabriek in Zaandam, a selection of more than forty (international) short animation films can be seen.
Art and culture for everyone is the motto of FluXus, the center for art and culture in Zaandam. The institution does this with courses and lessons in the visual arts, dance, media, music and theatre. FluXus is also active in all schools in the Zaan region and trains teachers and culture professionals in art and culture transfer.
The underlying idea is that art and culture can contribute ‘to preventing and solving social problems’. But FluXus also wants to ‘offer creatives a stage’.
The FluXus Animation Film Festival is one example of this. From the hundreds of entries of short animated films, the festival annually compiles a program of ‘creative films that are of artistic quality in terms of technique and storyline’. The emphasis is on inventiveness, creativity and originality. For the third festival edition on August 27 at De Fabriek, the festival selected more than forty films, divided into three categories: International, Benelux and All Ages. The public chooses a winner in each category, who is rewarded with an Award handcrafted by the FluXus production team.
The international selection illustrates that interesting and special animation films are being made all over the world. Can be seen: Scenes from Childhood (Kimberly Palermo, Brazil), The March of the Missing (Marcos Almada Rivera, Mexico), The Package (Zina Shcherbatova, Russia), Throat Notes (Felix Colagrave, Australia), Bellzebub (Cesar Diaz Melendez and Isabel de la Torre, Spain), Big Pig (Chloe Danguy and Ulysse Ley, France), Goodnight mr. Ted (Nicolas Sole, Spain), Kerfuffle (Courtney Carter and Sarah McDaniel, United States), O-Bon – Anecdotes from Kyoto (Jenay Vogel, Switzerland), Oldboy’s Apples (Brad Hack, United States), Self Scratch (Chenghua Yang, France), The Chimney Swift (Frederic Schuld, Germany), The Wet Mirror (Amir Houshang Moein, Iran), A Mysterious Hat (Du Yen-ting, Tawain), Thing (Malte Stein, Germany), Gravedad (Matisse Gonzalez, Germany), Love Is Just a Death Away (Bara Anna Stejskalova, Czech Republic) and Polka Dot Boy (Sarina Nihei, France)
In the category All Ages, it is striking that six of the eleven films come from Russia. Those movies are: lollaby (Marina Karpova), Maruska (Ludmila Smalyar), Measure (Anna Mikhalieva), Orchestra Rehearsal (Tatiana Okruzhnova), The Princess and the Bandit (Mariya Sosnina and Mikhail Aldashin) and Big and Small (Natalia Gropel). The other movies are: Kiki the Feather (Julie Rambouville, France), Kiko and the Animals (Yawen Zheng, France), Polar Bear Bears Boredom (Koji Yamamura, Japan), The Legend of Psalms (Tatyana Kublitskaya, Belarus) and 6 Paws Under (Nicolas Bianco-Levrin, France).
birdhouse
In the thirteen films Benelux category, films from the Netherlands and Belgium can be seen, but Luxembourg is missing. Apparently, the festival did not find any animation talent there this year. The Dutch and Belgian films at a glance: Giant (Yla Ernst), Not at home – Ellen and Not at home – Rob (Sophia Twigt), Not Your Flower to Pick (Annabel Venneker), Paralyzed Nights (Anna Koppen), Chip soup (Lise van der Gaag), rise (Nauel Garcia), So Sick (Emma Goalkeeper), Mirroring (Sanna de Vries), Pig (Jorn Leeuwerink), Animal (Damiel Anise), birdhouse (Wilbert van Velthuizen) and Delusion (image) and (Mackenzie Fincham).
Anyone who sees all the films will be perfectly aware of the enormous diversity of styles and techniques in the international animation world.
