More than 280 films from 50 countries filled screens in Ermoupoli, Greece, as the Animasyros festival marked its 19th edition. The programme ran across seven competition sections: International, Student, K.ID.S, AnimaPride, National Competition, TV & Commissioned Films and Feature Films.
The festival also included a focus on Irish animation, a theme marking 200 years of Ermoupoli, educational workshops, parallel events and international collaborations. Its industry market has become a reference point for animation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
A Regional Hub, Built Over 18 Years
Animasyros was founded in 2008, and 18 years have elapsed since. Its president, Vassilis Karamitssanis, describes it as the most important animation hub in the Mediterranean and in Greece. "It places strong emphasis on showcasing Greek and European talent around the world and also aims to highlight new techniques and technologies in the field of animation," he said. He called those techniques "the key to a sustainable future for the audiovisual sector in general and for European animation in particular."
The festival is due to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
Cross-Border Backing for a Dark Parable
The opening film was the Greek premiere of Decorado by Goya-winning Spanish creator Alberto Vásquez, whose earlier works include Unicorn Wars and Birdboy: The Forgotten Children. The Embassy of Spain in Greece and the Cervantes Institute supported the screening. Decorado won the Paul Grimault award at this year's Annecy animation festival, and it has been described as an animated version of The Truman Show.
The film's creative director, José Luis Ágreda, called it "a dark parable about our society and the way in which each of us, every individual, feels within it." He added: "The film is also about how society or, more specifically, companies try to dehumanise people." The story follows a man without a job for whom everything seems strange and unrelated to his reality.
Ágreda said the film borrows from classic American animation but gives it a twist. "It is as if we have a very happy world, like the society they try to sell us, but inside it there is something rotten," he said. The aim, he said, was "to get audiences to think about what is happening around us today."
Craft, Collaboration and Winners
Canadian sound designer Olivier Calvert, based in Montreal, gave a masterclass on sound as a storytelling tool. His credits include the Oscar-nominated short The Girl Who Cried Pearls, and he was part of the Oscar-winning sound team for Denis Villeneuve's Arrival. The festival paid tribute to his work and screened a selection of his films.
Calvert stressed collaboration. "This trio (director, composer and sound designer) is very important," he said. He also described animation as "an entirely new world," where sound doesn't have to be realistic.
The Grand Prize of the International Competition went to Please by Anna Mantzaris. Konstantinos Demis won the Greek Competition for The Dog. Gauze, a film about Palestine by five students from GOBELINS Paris (Noran Fikri Alezabi, Nicholas Arujah, Xinyue Ma, Yulin YUE and Xiaonan Zhou), won the Student Competition. Eilidh Nicoll of the United Kingdom won the TV and Commissioned Films category with Saltwater.
The AnimaPride section, which features LGBTQI+ content and showcases creativity, queer expression and acceptance, gave its prize to Eyeliner by Aisha Boujilouli. Paul Jadoul of the Czech Republic took first prize in K.ID.S with The Eagle and the Kinglet. Martin Lund's Unstoppable won the Audience Award.
Why This Matters: Animasyros shows what cross-border cultural cooperation looks like in practice. A Spanish embassy and cultural institute backed an opening film, students from a Paris school won a prize for a film about Palestine, and an Irish focus sat alongside a local anniversary in Greece. The festival's president ties the sector's future to new techniques and to showcasing European talent. Ágreda's film, meanwhile, is about companies dehumanising people, a theme that speaks to concerns many Europeans have about work and dignity. Whether festivals like this can sustain European animation over the long term is a question the source leaves open. It points to the need for continued public and institutional support for cultural work across member states.