This year’s 2013 Croatian One-Minute Film Festival saw a large variety of film content and genres that each utilized the allotted minute in their own unique way.  From the shudders of animated color in a experimental film from the Netherlands about neurosis to the warm reflections of life and love by elderly in a Polish documentary, all areas of the moving image spectrum were seemingly addressed. Yet, despite the predictably large variety of submissions present, the proportion of styles shown were very singular to this special one-minute style, and would not be seen so naturally in most other film festival contexts. Specifically, at least one-third of the submissions this year contained elements of animation, many of which introduced a rich blend of live action and animation into one short film. The boundary between these formerly distinct realms, film and animation, have been extinguished in our post-modern age of special effects, computer graphics, and more, and so the result has been a flourishing of film and animation that has not been seen just here but around the globe. However, traditionally animation continues to have lower representation in general film festivals. Therefore, its stronger presence at this one minute festival lends credit to the idea that not only is animation gaining ground in the film world, but is particularly well suited and advantageous for the one-minute style, and so may not simply hold its own ground against the competition but improve the level of live-action film submissions as well. With positive reception from the audience (both the audience’s chosen winner and the grand prix recipient contained animated elements) and the obvious passion from the filmmakers shown by their intensive work, animation deservedly earned a large portion of the spotlights in this year’s much anticipated festival.

Up & Down, Denis Sychev

The winners were particularly interesting and special this year though not simple because of their frequent use of animation, but also for their specific film content as well. If one regards the films without distinguishing between animated and live action submissions, it appeared that the most successful pieces, according to the audience and judging panel, for this year’s One-Minute Film Festival were those that incorporated some amount of political components. For example, this year’s Unica prize went to a piece called “Up & Down”, which was a brief Russian animation reminiscent of Sisyphus’s tale, the man condemned to push the boulder up the hill for all eternity. With nonchalant apathy, a featureless, simplistic character reaches the top with his boulder, only to experience struggles and failure in his efforts to keep it there. Without surprise, the boulder rolls back down the mountain. However, the tale diverges from the familiar tale once the viewer is shown that at the bottom of the hill where the boulder comes to rest again stands an endless line of this same, faceless figure aimlessly waiting to similarly push the rock. With the same indifference, the next character in line resumes the task, and only after he repeats the past character’s failure precisely does the short film’s message becomes clearer. There will always be another to take your task, to mindlessly go against gravity; the failures will continuously accumulate, the too idealistic goals will never be accomplished. Although a fairly simple animation in itself, the idea it expresses resonates with all cultures, often perceived as a flaw of all groups of people. This deeper quality is what allowed this film of such simple visuals and content, possibly even redundant ideas, to receive such attention at the festival.

Bez računa se ne računa, Hrvoje Podobnik

Another surprising hit, actually the prize winner of two separate awards, was a stop-motion animation work called “It doesn’t count without an account…,” or BEZ RAČUNA SE NE RAČUNA. This straightforward piece was characterized by fuzzy, plump angry birds masquerading as mercenaries with their static, plastic army figures henchmen over the people of Croatia. In just one shot, within the firm grip of the narrator not offering a story but forcefully dictating a frank account of Croatia’s past with swindling and doming mercenaries without embellishment, this short film tug the emotional heart strings of all the native Croatians present. Before a proud Croatian audience, this film appeared to sweep the show, grabbing both the third place price as well as the audience prize. Although the animation itself was very mediocre and explicit to a dreary degree, its personal content of the film brought it large esteem and praise nevertheless.

Venezia Massi, Simone Massi

 Given the strong success that political films had in this year’s festival, it may seem better to suggest that it was not the animation that caught the judges and audiences vote but rather their overpowering messages. However, this proposition cannot hold true when one considers that many submissions lacking animation similarly targeted topics dense political topics, but were nevertheless unrecognized with a special honor in the end, like for example “Poland 20 Years From Now”. Considering all the submitted animations, the most politically heavy ones won, thus it cannot also be said that the most politically strong films of each world, live-action and animation, went unrecognized.  Animation itself simply appeared to be the most favored mode of translating a story, particularly an opinionated one, in the one-minute film style.

Headache, K. Domzalska

Considering how abundant and successful the animation submissions were in this one-minute festival (even with the political elements-many politically charged live-actions works were submitted but received less notice), animation seems to be very well suited to the one-minute film style. The cause of this may be that animation has tended towards shorter productions due to the inherit constraints of the medium. Distinct live-action film, each single frame must be individually crafted and given the upmost care. Each subtle movement must be analyzed extensively to ensure the achieved visually effect, and thus this art requires much time. A result of this intrinsic quality has been animation’s tendency to favor shorter films because even with brief works the necessitated time is great. Furthermore, with less physical constraints, animation allows for more swift and seamless transformations that translate into a more rapid expression of ideas that cannot as easily be represented by film. With swift transformation, the animator can adopt a full-packaged story in a speedy delivery that would make for the most complete film that is obtainable in purely in 60 seconds.  Animation overall has the potential to express a lot of content in novel interesting ways, and so can be considered one of the most ideal mediums for a very short film. Given the wonderful abundance of animation submissions and content, the filmmakers seemed to believe this too.

Ashleigh Cote