StopTrik Goes Animest

We're excited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Animest Bucharest International Film Festival!

Animest is a well-established, always exciting, and the largest animation festival in Romania, dedicated to presenting the treasures of contemporary global art-house animation while also exploring trippy and subversive forms of the medium. The 20th edition of the festival takes place on 3.-12. 10. 2025, and the StopTrik team has just arrived in Bucharest – one of the most fascinating European cities (we absolutely love it!).

We're proud and grateful that StopTrik is this year’s guest festival, alongside our dear friends from Flipbook Film Festival (Skopje, North Macedonia) and TAFF (Turku, Finland).

StopTrik’s contribution to the 20th Animest program includes a talk on researching, curating, and programming, delivered by Olga Bobrowska and Michał Bobrowski, as well as a presentation of some of StopTrik’s finest curated films, selected through a very specific thematic lens.

The program will be presented on  7.10.2025, at the Instituto Cervantes - Bucharest (Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta 38, București 050017).

Find more information HERE

The Stories We Tell. Stop motion animation from Central-East Europe

This unique presentation of several fascinating stop motion animations, which have participated in StopTrik IFF competitions over the years, centers on the question of narrativity in animation. Stop motion, especially puppet animation, often leans toward storytelling that follows recognizable narrative arcs and develops linearly, adhering to the ever-engaging, classical three-act dramaturgical structure. At the same time, it is the animated form itself that invites captivating metamorphoses, resulting in the most unexpected twists, turns, and tensions. Animation’s narrativity readily embraces storytelling that celebrates nuance, ambivalence, poetry, and absurdity. The presented programme features seven contemporary works created in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (with the exception of the film SOWING, made in Germany by Belarus-born animator Maryna Miliushchanka). Employing diverse storytelling approaches, these films explore themes and motifs that deeply resonate with the cultural heritage of the region. Whether through twisted folktales, modernist discourses from the pre-World War I era, or contemporary reflections on the kinship between human and non-human beings, they all share a distinct sense of irony and a touch of eeriness.

Full programme:

1.     Crab / Krab, dir. Piotr Chmielewski, prod. WJTeam, 2022, Poland, France, 8'42''

2.     Three Birds / Tri tičice, dir. Zarja Menart, prod. Finta Film, Adriatic Animation, 2024, Slovenia, Croatia, 8'18''

3.     The Family Portrait, dir. Lea Vidaković, prod. Adriatic Animation, Vivement Lundi!, Biberche Productions, 2023, Croatia, France, Serbia, 14'

4.     Such Miracles Do Happen / Takie cuda się zdarzają, dir. Barbara Rupik, prod. Film School Lodz, 2022, Poland, 14'

5.     Shallow Vein / Плитка Вена (Plitka vena), dir. Yoana Alexandrova, prod. (Compote Collective), 2019, Bulgaria, 6’23

6.     Sowing / Säen, dir. Maryna Miliushchanka, prod. Kunsthochschule Kassel, 2018, Germany, 7'24''

7.     Plantarium, dir. Tomasz Ducki, prod. EgoFILM, 2020, Poland, 7'