This autumn brings a new Edition of Anim’est Animation International Film Festival (29 September – 8 October, Bucharest), the only local festival dedicated exclusively to animation film. This 12th Edition comes with a special theme, The Comics Edition, celebrating one of the most constant and significant sources of inspiration for animation films, the comic strips.
Dave Cooper, this year's special guest of the festival, is the one who signs the Anim’est 2017 poster, entitled
Raluca Descends on Bucharest. The Canadian Dave Cooper, one of the most appreciated comic strips artists, began his activity in the ’90s as underground comics' illustrator for Fantagraphics. Afterwards, he become well-known for his oil paintings, populated by bizarre female characters who defy conventions, and for his contributions in animation – he is one of the main designers of the American sitcom
Futurama, winner of Emmy, and the co-creator of the animated series
Pig Goats Banana Cricket, broadcast by Nickelodeon. Dave Cooper will be part of the jury of the international short and student film competitions and will bring to Bucharest an exhibition of his works, expression of a personal universe, as well as his latest book,
Ripple, for which a special autograph session will be organised. The latest animation short made after Cooper's comics and directed by Rune Spaans,
The Absence of Eddy Table, will be also screened, within one of the most awaited-for thematic nights of the festival, Creepy Animation Night.
For the entire duration of this year's edition, some of the most beloved animation feature films made after comics will be screened:
Persepolis,
Tintin et le temple du 
soleil / Tintin and the Temple of the Sun and
Chico & Rita.
Anim’est 2017 will kick off on 29 September, with the animation feature film
Loving Vincent (directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman), based on the life and strange death of one of the most acclaimed modern artists. The film implied a considerable effort. Initially, real shootings were made, with actors, then each of the 62,450 scenes were manually painted in oil. Afterwards, the animation was made in rotoscopy, the end product being a mix between live action shootings and painting. 125 painters from all over the world worked at the film, in studios from Poland and Greece, and the shootings were made in London and Wroclaw. For a year, the crew of painters and animators reconstituted the works of Van Gogh in cinematic form.
The 12th Edition of Anim'est Animation International Film Festival will be held between 29 September - 8 October 2017 at Cinematheque Eforie, Cinema Elvire Popesco, CINETic Centre, Expirat Halele Carol and Apollo111.
Details at:
www.animest.ro
(Translated by Stela Moise)
