More than 280 films from 50 countries screened at Animasyros in Ermoupoli, Greece. In its 19th consecutive year, the festival brought animation from around the world to a programme featuring a Greek competition, an Irish focus and events marking 200 years of Ermoupoli. It also put European talent in the spotlight.
A Greek and European Platform
The programme had seven competition sections: International, Student, K.ID.S, AnimaPride, National Competition, TV & Commissioned Films and Feature Films. Educational workshops, parallel events and international collaborations accompanied the screenings. The festival said its industry market has become a reference point for animation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Vassilis Karamitssanis, President of the Animasyros International Festival, called the event “the most important hub for animation in the Mediterranean and in Greece.” He said it places “strong emphasis on showcasing Greek and European talent around the world” and highlighting new techniques and technologies in animation. Karamitssanis said those developments are “the key to a sustainable future for the audiovisual sector in general and for European animation in particular.”
Animasyros will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. The Greek Competition award went to The Dog by Konstantinos Demis. The National Competition was one of this year’s seven sections.
Films and Awards from Across Borders
The festival opened with the Greek premiere of Decorado, by Spanish creator Alberto Vásquez. The Embassy of Spain in Greece and the Cervantes Institute supported the screening. The film won the Paul Grimault award at this year’s Annecy animation festival and was described as an animated version of The Truman Show.
José Luis Ágreda, the film’s creative director, called Decorado “a parable, a dark parable about our society and the way in which each of us, every individual, feels within it.” He said the film also addresses how “society or, more specifically, companies try to dehumanise people.” Its story follows a man without a job who finds the world around him strange and disconnected from his reality, Ágreda said.
Anna Mantzaris’s Please won the Grand Prize of the International Competition. Gauze, a film about Palestine made by five students from GOBELINS Paris, won the Student Competition. Saltwater by Eilidh Nicoll of the United Kingdom took the Television and Commissioned Films category. Aisha Boujilouli’s Eyeliner won the AnimaPride prize, while The Eagle and the Kinglet by Paul Jadoul of the Czech Republic won the K.ID.S category. Martin Lund’s Unstoppable received the Audience Award.
Craft, Sound and Creative Collaboration
Montreal-based Canadian sound designer Olivier Calvert led a masterclass on sound as a storytelling tool. His credits include the Oscar-nominated short film The Girl Who Cried Pearls, and he joined the Oscar-winning sound team for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Animasyros paid tribute to his work and screened a selection of films.
“Sound design shapes the overall sound of a film, which means you can work with its sonic environment,” Calvert said. He described birds, traffic, the sea and waves, and explained that sound can sit beneath music or dialogue to create tension. “It is the filter through which you look at the image,” he said. “It gives you the emotion with which you perceive that image.”
Calvert said animation lets filmmakers construct a world rather than reproduce a natural environment. “In an animated film we do not need the sound to be realistic,” he said. He described the work as a collaboration among the director, composer and sound designer. Sometimes, he said, he joins a project early to help shape its story through sound.
Festival coverage also highlighted an Egyptian first animated feature that took 20 years to make, alongside Merike Estna’s The House of Leaking Sky at the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2026.