ANIMAFEST SCANNER XI
Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies
The 13th edition of the Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies Animafest Scanner XIII aims again to create synergy of theoretical and practical discourses and stimulate exchange between filmmakers and scholars. As the worldwide animation studies are rapidly growing and evolving in recent years, catching up with the increasing field of animated films, Animafest Scanner symposium is again at the frontline of the discourse and the interaction of theoretical and practical approaches to animation. The symposium is held as part of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb. Over the course of its fifty-four-years history, the festival has given a stage to different animation forms and formats in competition and non-competition environments, presenting a worldwide selection of auteur, experimental and mainstream animated films in various programs.
This year the speakers will focus on the following four subjects: Genealogies of Animated Form: From Hand-Crafted Motion to Artificial Intelligence / Writing Animation History: Methods, Periodization and Perspective / Curating Animation: Festivals, Exhibitions and Canon Formation / Music in Animation.
Amid Amidi is this year’s keynote speaker and the recipient of the Animafest Zagreb Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies for 2026.
09/06 TUESDAY
09:45 Welcome & Introduction
PANEL 1 – Genealogies of Animated Form: From Hand-Crafted Motion to Artificial Intelligence
Moderator: Nikica Gilić
10:00 – 10:30
Jürgen Hagler (UAS Upper Austria, Ars Electronica), Celine Pham (media artist): Animating an Archive: AI and the Limits of Cultural Heritage Interpretation
10:35 – 11:05
Akira Arimochi (Aichi University of the Arts): Narrative According to Landscape Animation
-coffee break-
11:20 – 11:50
Jenna Caravello (UCLA department of Design Media Arts): Golem Lover: Avatar–Mediated Relationships and the Emergent Languages of Game Worlds
11:55 – 12:25
Paulina Martyna Ziółkowska (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México): The Paradoxical Realism of Deconstructed 3D: Why Does Self-Aware 3D Seem More Real than Hyperrealistic 3D?
-lunch break-
14:00 – 14:45 KEYNOTE
Amid Amidi (Animafest Zagreb Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies): Whose History Is It?: Telling the Story of American Animation
PANEL 2 – Writing Animation History: Methods, Periodization and Perspective
Moderator: Franziska Proksa
14:50 – 15:20
Olga Bobrowska (Institute of Art and Design, UKEN University in Kraków), Chunning Maggie Guo (Renmin University of China, Confucius Institute of Geneva University): Contemporary Chinese Animation Canon: Institutions, Festivals and Transnational Exchanges in Comparative Perspective
-coffee break-
15:35 – 16:05
Betty Stojnić (Nagoya University): Anime Auteurs: Rethinking Auteurism in Japanese Animation from Miyazaki Hayao to Ōtomo Katsuhiro
10/06 WEDNESDAY
09:45 Welcome & Introduction
PANEL 3 – Curating Animation: Festivals, Exhibitions and Canon Formation
Moderator: Holger Lang
10:00 – 10:30
Cécile Noesser (ESAD Amiens): A History of Cinema as Art, the Place of Animation: A Comparative Approach, France/United States 1946–1976
10:35 – 11:05
Ewa Ciszewska (University of Łódź, Polish Animation Research Group): Curating Socialist Animation: Animafest Zagreb and the Cold War Circulation of Polish Animated Film
-coffee break-
11:20 – 11:50
Martina Tritthart (Institute for Cultural Analysis, University of Klagenfurt): Curating Feminist Animation: 25 Years of Tricky Women Tricky Realities and the Transnational Politics of Visibility, Canon Formation and Circulation
11:55 – 12:25
Paola Orlić (independent curator): Expanded Animation: Curatorial Practices Between Cinema and the Gallery
-lunch break-
PANEL 4 – Music in Animation
Moderator: Andrijana Ružić
14:00 – 14:30
Edmund Jansons (Atom Art / Art Academy of Latvia): Freeride in C. Repetitions and Loops as a Form-building Element in Music and Auteur Animation
14:35 – 15:05
Jens Meinrenken (freelancer, Humboldt University of Berlin): Imagine the Unheard. The Radical Aesthetic of Electronic Music in the History of Animation
15:10 – 15 40
Katarzyna Figat (The Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz): More than Just Noises and Crackling. Artists Associated with the Polish Radio Experimental Studio as the Authors of the Sound and Music for Films by the Polish School of Animation
Organisers:
World Festival of Animated film – Animafest Zagreb
Hulahop Film & Art Production
ASIFA Austria
Organising committee:
Daniel Šuljić, MA, World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb
Franziska Proksa, PhD St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences / AG Animation Vienna
Nikica Gilić, PhD, Prof., Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Prof. Holger Lang, Independent Scholar
Prof. Hrvoje Turković, PhD, Prof. in retirement, Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb
Andrijana Ružić, Independent Scholar, Università Statale di Milano
With support of:
Croatian Audiovisual Centre
Zagreb Tourist Board
City of Zagreb
Croatian Film Authors’ and Producers’ Association