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Since the beginning of animation, animators have always found the transparent boundary between fine art and animated film tempting and inspiring. Several feature films have appeared in recent years that successfully balance on this line (for example Loving, Vincent which was screened at last year's Anifilm). But Hungarian film Ruben Brandt, Collector defies most of such films in terms of both genre and story and artistic style. Slovenian director Milorad Krstić opens his feature debut with a car chase through the streets of Paris and continues in the tradition of thrilling action films for the entire 90-minute running length. On the way, he adopts elements from crime, gangster, detective and mystery films as well as psychological dramas. The protagonists of the film are the famous psychologist Ruben Brandt, expert in art therapy, and four of his extraordinary patients. After the death of his father, the psychologist is tormented by haunting nightmares full of paintings by classical masters. It seems that the only way to chase away the nightmares is to steal the paintings from galleries. And so, together with the patients, he forms an intrepid gang, who soon have a price put on their heads. Apart from its complex and thrilling story, the film is unique in the way in which the director stylises the settings, characters and the paintings. The story is swarming with characters who are works of art themselves with qualities underlined by expressive and at times even extreme stylisation.

The life of a four-year-old boy named Kun is turned upside down by a defenceless alien – his newborn sister Mirai. Up until this moment, the attention of Kun’s parents could only have been diverted by work, but now the world revolves around the little girl. No matter how hard Kun tries, he can’t seem to grow fond of his little sister. But what if he first learned to accept her older self from the future? Lonely and betrayed, Kun befriends the strange visitors to their house who turn out to be his late grandfather, a human incarnation of his pet dog Yukko and even Mirai herself who is suddenly much older. But despite that, the family situation seems irresolvable until a fateful trip to Tokyo where Kun ends up being all alone. Director Mamoru Hosoda has lots of experience with stories set in the world of children (in 2016, his film The Boy and the Beast competed at Anifilm). But the story of Kun and his little sister is suitable for all kinds of audiences. It sensitively explores the topic of family relations and uses brilliantly animated fantastic images to appeal to all generations. The film was nominated for an Oscar.

The story of the co-production The Tower by Norwegian director Mats Grorud centres around a little Palestinian girl from a refugee camp in Lebanon. Eleven-year-old Wardi is a curious and sensitive girl so when her beloved great-grandfather gives her the key to his house in Galilee, she is taken aback. He was among the first to arrive to the camp in 1948 and Wardi fears that this might mean that her great-grandfather has lost all hope of ever returning to his house.
In the scenes when The Tower recalls events from the past, its authors combine classic animation with puppet animation. As Wardi collects testimonies from the family and tries to provoke them to do something, we learn about the troubled history of Palestinian emigration. In an original way, the film reflects upon the era when almost one and a half million Palestinians were driven from their homes – and they have been living in refugee camps scattered across the whole Arab world ever since. In one of these camps, where the families build bizarre high towers, the director himself taught the children animation.

This anticipated feature anidoc is an adaptation of a book of the same name by the renowned Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. In 1975, he spent three months in war-torn Angola where he witnessed drastic events that fundamentally changed his life and his perspective on the journalistic work. The story is based on real events. Against the backdrop of the horrors of war, Kapuściński suddenly finds himself dealing with his inner conflict: he no longer wants to be a passive observer delivering objective reports. He meets people whose tragic fates don't leave him indifferent. He feels drawn into the conflict, absorbed by the events and wants the world to know real stories. He resigns from his position as a journalist, a job with boundaries he perceives to be relative, and becomes a writer-storyteller. His suggestive story is full of dynamic scenes that immediately draw the viewers into the centre of the action. This film, screened in Cannes and Annecy, has won many awards, including the Goya award.

When Pol Pot’s forces occupied Phnom Penh, Cambodia was plunged into a four-year-long reign of terror during which two million people were killed. In depicting this nightmarish episode of the history of Funan, French director Denis Do prefers an intimate portrayal of the suffering of one family – representing thousands of other families – to an open depiction of bloody violence. Inspired by the story of his own mother and her peers, he tells the story of Chuo and Khuon who lose their four-year-old son Sovanh when they are being forcibly moved from the capital to a Khmer Rouge labour camp. While the parents are forced to work on rice fields in inhuman conditions, Sovanh, along with other children, is subjected to systematic brainwashing. Regardless of the horrors, we have an opportunity to watch a number of moral victories and displays of humanity of individual characters in their efforts to be reunited with each other. The authors did their best to animate fine facial expressions of the characters as well as the Cambodian nature that presents a unique contrast and hope in the film. This captivating story from a painful era of human history is unique in its poetics and does not rob the depicted stories of their authenticity. The unique qualities of the film were recognised at the Annecy Festival where the film won the main award.

In this French-Luxembourgian-Canadian co-production, Argentinean director Juan Antín takes us into the Peruvian Andes. We find ourselves in the 16th century in a remote village, the home of a ten-year-old rascal named Tepulpaï. The boy has a clear plan; he wants to become a shaman. But in order to do that, he has to persuade the Great Shaman of his village that he is mature enough and doesn’t lack concentration. And soon enough, the village faces big trouble. The Great Inca (tax collector) confiscates the sacred statue Huacu to compensate for the harvest that the villagers sacrificed instead of handing in. And that presents a great opportunity for the fearless Tepulpaï who sets out to recover the indispensable statue. And whether he likes it or not, he’s not alone – he is joined by his friend Naïra and a typical Peruvian pet. Pachamama, originally a name of the Incan goddess of fertility, is a film abundant in pleasant South-American colourfulness and uses a 3D animation technique deliberately “flattened” to 2D.

This feature film that premiered at the last edition of the Annecy Festival was made by German twin brothers Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein. In their rendition, the unexpected adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Town Musicians of Bremen acquires a slightly morbid tone but nonetheless remains a family film that will entertain children and grown-ups alike. Its hero is a spoiled ginger house cat named Marnie who is pampered by her eccentric and anxious owner Rosalinde. Marnie has never left the house and knows the outside world only from TV. But when Rosalinde’s brother comes seeking temporary asylum, an adventure begins. Even though they haven’t seen each other in years, Rosalinde accommodates her brother and unexpected things start happening. Soon after that, Marnie finds herself alone at a crossroad just outside the town. She joins forces with other animals and, in their efforts to return home, they steal a van. But the van belongs to wanted criminals, so everyone suddenly thinks that Marnie and the rest of the animals are them. The whole group must therefore clear their names and catch the real criminals. The film is an example of sophisticated European CGI animation by experienced authors.

Although this melancholic film is set in 1995 during the Quebec independence referendum, the political situation is not its main theme but rather a symbol of uncertainty and ambivalence characterising its protagonists. In this tense atmosphere, alcoholic Joseph retreats to a remote countryside house at the edge of the Gaspé town Ville Neuve where he spent the most beautiful days in his life with his former wife Emma. This time, he tries to quit drinking here in hopes that Emma will come visit him. The hesitant woman finally agrees, but their son Ulysses is reluctant to see his father and is more interested in the political-societal situation. Félix Laperrière-Dufour’s debut is based on a short story by Raymond Carver and sensitively captures the doubts of all its characters while the director’s minimalist artistic style plays the main role. The charm of classical Indian ink on paper enhances the intimate atmosphere of a story about re-establishing bonds between people and is one of the main virtues of this lyrical film.

Although official materials state that the director of this extremely ambitious puppet film (at least for a European production) is only Kaspar Jancis, the truth is that it was a co-production of three directors (apart from Jancis, also his colleague Riho Unt, and Henry Nicholson) and four countries. The result is a precisely animated artistically interesting family film with an original story that takes us into the world of a ten-year-old boy named Morten. The boy's life is not very happy – separated from his father who sails the seas and living with his disliked aunt Anna in a café in the port, Morten creates his own world. In the centre of this world is a small boat that Morten made. It represents a way out and a hope that, one day, Morten will become a real captain just like his father. But when he is magically shrunk to the size of an insect and assumes command of his small schooner, the real drama of growing up and exploring the world according to one’s own limits begins. With an insect crew, Morten sets sail for a dangerous voyage across the flooded café. At the end of their liberating voyage, he learns what it's like to take responsibility for his own life.

Southern Chile. A young girl called Maria is on the run. She has managed to escape from a colony run by a German religious sect and find shelter in a strange house inhabited by two pigs. This new friendship eventually changes all three of them. That’s how the Chilean directorial duo plays out their claustrophobic horror inspired by the tale of the Three Little Pigs. The film addresses a dark and suppressed chapter of the not-too-distant Chilean past. The directors use animation methods that are scarcely used in feature films such as animation of large-scale paintings and human-sized puppets. The tension and insecurity are multiplied by frequent transformations and decompositions of anything that appears in the film. Moreover, the authors composed the film as if it was one long take. This unique experimental feature film invokes the spirit of the real and sinister Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) that was for decades run by a former Nazi, Paul Schäfer, who was protected by Pinochet’s regime. Thanks to archive recordings, the former Chilean dictator acts as the narrator of the film.