Interview of the day: Míša Hoffová

This year’s festival visual identity was created by director and artist Michaela Hoffová. You can read about what inspired her, how she approached the project, and what she has in the pipeline next in the following interview prepared by Berta Macháčková. And don’t forget to check out the exhibition Michaela Hoffová: Anifilm 2026, which you’ll find at Café Pošta!

The theme of this year’s Anifilm is myths and legends. What was the very first image or feeling that came to mind when you got this assignment?

At first, I had a million ideas racing through my head. It’s a theme very close to my heart. Since childhood, books dealing with mythology, legends, and folklore from all corners of the world, both fiction and non-fiction, have been one of my favourite genres. I’ve always been fascinated by these diverse, imaginative worlds with their own rules, traditions, and morals, where magic mingles with religion, and the profane with the sacred. I love ancient Greek mythology, which depicts gods as beings that are as flawed as ordinary people with all their imperfections and vanity and is alive with bizarre creatures, balancing on the border between the human and animal realms. But I am just as fascinated by old Czech myths and legends with their completely different atmosphere, especially the darker ones, in which nightmares in the form of black cats would lie on unsuspecting sleepers and suck the life out of them, and crosses were drawn with holy chalk on doors and windows to protect people from hellish visitors. Then there’s also Norse mythology, Native American fairy tales, Eskimo legends… I could go on and on. So when I received this assignment from Anifilm, it was initially quite difficult for me to sort through and choose from all the ideas inspired by these various sources.

How much does the final version differ from your original idea? What process did you go through while working on it?

The final version differs quite a bit from my original idea. As I mentioned, I had a lot of ideas and themes to work with. At first, I leaned towards Czech legends, specifically those from the Liberec area. I bought a book of Liberec legends at a used bookstore, which was teeming with stories full of mischievous gnomes, so the very first concept for the trailer featured Liberec gnomes as the main characters.

But we don’t see this motif in the final trailer.

In the end, I decided to approach the theme of mythology and legends a bit more broadly and to simplify the narrative. I was looking for a simple element that would carry the narrative thread of the opening sequence and that I could also use graphically. I wanted the trailer to be interconnected with the festival logo, and the visual concept to be compact and unified, referencing both the theme of mythology and the festival itself. So I took the letter “A” from the name Anifilm and transformed it into a rising mountain, a volcano that gradually rises through a stylized mythological landscape inhabited by various mythical creatures.

Could you tell us a little more about your source of inspiration? Where did you draw the individual motifs and characters from? What criteria did you use to select them?

I picked the characters featured in the trailer from various corners of the mythological world and tried to depict them in my own way so that they would fit into the imaginary landscape I created for the trailer. But in the end, I was probably most influenced by the Greek mythology, since that’s where I borrowed most of the characters from – the Kraken, the Cerberus, and the Cyclops. I’d say that ancient Greece also partially influenced the visual style of the trailer, some elements of which were inspired by motifs from ancient Greek pottery. I think this is most evident in the character designs and the use of lines on their black silhouettes. And I wouldn’t say that I used any specific criteria in choosing them. The selection process was more intuitive, and my choices were determined solely by what I thought would work best in the trailer.

How did you approach the colour pallet? Did you know from the start that you wanted to present the world in these particular colours, or were there other alternative versions?

I figured out the colour combination I would use for the trailer and visual identity quite early on; in fact, as early as during the first design drafts for the final concept of the trailer. The main goal was to use a bold, contrasting colour palette that would always be recognizable and associated with this year’s Anifilm.

You use various techniques in your work. How did you decide on this particular one? Did it allow you to express something better than the other ones?

Digital 2D animation was really pretty much an obvious choice for me. It’s the technique that I work best with and have been using in other creative projects for a long time. Its two great advantages are its flexibility and adaptability. It allows you to combine various techniques and, in the final compositing, put them all together according to your own directorial and artistic vision.

Can you tell us what you’re working on right now? What can we look forward to in the near future?

Right now, I’m focusing mainly on producing my own short film, a sort of post-apocalyptic fairy tale for both children and grown-ups, which I’m collaborating on with the wonderful animators Saša and Martin Máj. Besides that, I’m also currently working on illustrations for a new children’s book by Anna Šimáková Dosoudilová, which will be published by the Labyrint publishing house this autumn.