This year, LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival will run online between September 2nd and 6th. All competition screenings will be united by this year’s topic ‘Becoming Human’. What makes us human? Thanks to its surreal nature, animation can explore areas of our experience that are elusive for the other forms of arts and science. This leitmotif is central to the LINOLEUM trailer that was created by Nikita Liskov - filmmaker, animator, artist and this year's jury member. The music score was composed by MC Brehunets.
‘Becoming Human’ is this year’s topic. But is the mere fact of existence enough for considering oneself human? Or do you need to accomplish something to become human? The festival’s theme raised many questions that I tried to approach humorously –Nikita Liskov comments on his trailer idea.
The winners in three categories (International competition, Ukrainian competition and Commissioned films competition) will be determined by directors, producers, curators and animators from around the world.
Nikita Liskov is a filmmaker and artist based in Dnipro. His film ‘Deep Love’ (2019) became the first Ukrainian nominee at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival and received many awards all around the world. This year, Nikita will become a jury member of the International competition section.
Tünde Vollenbroek and Sander Joon will join him in judging the animation films from International competition. This category is the largest in terms of the number of participants and contains 44 animation films.
Tünde Vollenbroek is a key figure in the European animation community, Amsterdam-based Tünde Vollenbroek is Producer at production house Studio Pupil and Curator at KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival, and former Correspondent at Cartoon Brew and Board Member at the European Animation Awards.
Sander Joon, Estonian animation artist. His films Velodrool (2015), Moulinet (2017), and Sounds Good (2018) have screened at festivals all over the world, and won awards from several festivals, among others Stuttgart, PÖFF Shorts, Kaboom and Fredrikstad.
Commissioned films competiton includes best commercials, trailers and music videos (27 films in total). The winner in this category will be determined by Britt Raes, Gerta Xhelo and Oleksandr Tregub.
Britt Raes, independent director and animator from Belgium. Her first professional short film 'Catherine' screened worldwide at over 200 festivals and won 50 prizes.
Gerta Xhelo is the current Director of Production at TED-Ed. Since joining in 2013, she has had the immense pleasure of co-curating and overseeing the visual and editorial production of 1000+ animated short films which have reached over 1.5 billion views worldwide and have been featured in dozens of animation festivals, including Annecy, Animafest Zagreb, Anima Mundi, ASIFA, etc.
Oleksandr Tregub is a designer, professor, and cultural entrepreneur. Co-founder and director of the “Projector” school for designers, illustrators, animation artists, as well as marketing specialists and software engineers.
The jury of the Ukrainian competition includes Oleksandr Bubnov, Eugene Boitsov and Egor Olesov. This year, 13 films have been selected for the national category.
Oleksandr Bubnov is an independent director and animator, whose films include Blue Beard’s Last Wife, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Sherlock Holmes and Black Men and Fairy Tale of an Egg, The Cord.
Eugene Boitsov worked as the main animation artist for the pilot episode of Les Cullottées for the Silex Films studio. Created the storyboard for feature film Marona’s Fantastic Tale. Directed two episodes of the series for Paris opera Monsieur Onde, produced by Doncvoila Productions. Worked as the director, animator, and compositing artist for small projects at Caimans Production та Les Astronautes.
Egor Olesov, producer, creative producer, VFX Producer. Has more than 18-years of experience in media and film industry. CEO of Animagrad animation studio, co-founder of Digital Cinema Ukraine and Postmodern. Egor is a member of European Film Academy, Visual Effects Society and Ukrainian Television Academy. He produced animated features The Stolen Princess, Mavka. The Forest Song (in production), Roxelana (in development) and TV series Eskimo girl.
LINOLEUM is held with the support of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
The festival is organised by Animagrad animation studio.
