The Slovak Film Institute (SFI) will also present a selection of its films at the 19th International Animation Festival Fest Anča. As part of this year’s programme, the festival will screen a selection of seven short films by Slovak animator, director, screenwriter and artist Vladimír Pikalík, marking the release of the SFI’s new Blu-ray edition dedicated to his work. Moreover, the festival will open with First Class (1984) by Rudolf Urc from the SFI collections, which resonates with this year’s festival theme, FAKE. Fest Anča takes place in Žilina from 30 June to 5 July.
Directed by filmmaker and dramaturge Rudolf Urc, First Class is a timeless animated film about a man determined to join the elite at any cost. “Rudolf Urc’s First Class has been included in the programme as a tribute to the distinguished dramaturge and co-founder of the Department of Animation at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, whom we sadly lost at the beginning of this year,” says Barbara Nováková from the SFI’s Audiovisual Information Centre, who participated in the selection of the films for Fest Anča. According to Nováková, “the film strongly resonates with this year’s festival theme, FAKE. It follows a young man dressed in fashionable denim who devises increasingly ingenious and absurd schemes to secure a seat in the first-class carriage of a train. The film will be screened during the opening ceremony with English subtitles.”
In a dedicated programme section, the festival will also present a retrospective of Vladimír Pikalík’s work to mark the release of the Blu-ray edition of his animated films. This animator, director, screenwriter and visual artist was among the filmmakers who significantly shaped Slovak animation in the 1980s. “Today, Vladimír Pikalík’s puppet animation remains overshadowed by better-known figures of Slovak animation such as Ivan Popovič and Viktor Kubal,” says Nováková. “By releasing a Blu-ray edition with a selection of Pikalík’s work, the SFI continues its long-term effort to highlight lesser-explored figures in the history of Slovak cinema through the release of their digitally restored films. Equally important is that, by making our film heritage accessible, we are bringing it to the youngest audiences, for whom Pikalík’s films were primarily intended.“
Seven of Pikalík’s films have been selected for the Fest Anča programme. “The final selection was curated to showcase the most distinctive characters and recurring themes of Pikalík’s work while also covered the period during which he was active,” Nováková explains. “The programme opens with The Disobedient Little Wheel (1983), a film that brings together the hallmarks of Pikalík’s filmmaking: moral stories built around universal themes, delivering gentle lessons for children through playful humour whose inventive details continues to delight adult audiences as well.“
The programme continues with The Boy from a Star (1984) and Joey’s Space Adventure (1990), both reflecting Pikalík’s fascination with outer space. The selection includes three films featuring the character Joey (Jožinko), inspired by the resourceful hero of a popular Slovak comic strip created by caricaturist Jozef Babušek under the pseudonym Jozef Schek and published continuously for more than twenty years in the satirical magazine Roháč. Alongside Joey’s Space Adventure (1990), audiences will see Joey’s Traffic in Things (1981) and Joey in the Zoo (1986). The programme also includes two films starring the character Mr Gong, who alternately wins and loses his battles with household appliances in a series of comic situations: Gongo and the Alarm Clocks (1980) and Gongo and the Television Sets (1980). All films will be screened with English subtitles as well as Slovak descriptive subtitles for audiences with hearing impairments.
The screening of Pikalík’s films will be accompanied by the launch of the newly released Blu-ray edition Vladimír Pikalík. Selected Works, which includes ten of his short animated films. The Blu-ray is accmpanied with English subtitles, Slovak subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences, and audio description for blind and visually impaired viewers. Throughout the festival, the Blu-ray will be available at a special discounted price alongside other SFI editions dedicated to animated film, including the recently released DVD collections of films by Jaroslava Havettová (2022) and Helena Slavíková-Rabarová (2019), both of which were officially launched at previous editions of Fest Anča. The screening of Pikalík’s films and presentation of the Blu-ray edition will take place at the Žilina City Theatre on Saturday, 4 July, at 11:00 a.m.
More information is available on the festival website
More information about the Blu-ray edition with the work of Vladimír Pikalík
