Today, Bucharest returns to its coveted status as Europe's capital of animated film: until Sunday, October 11, the Animest International Animation Festival is taking over the city's best-known cinema and cultural venues: Cinema Elvire Popesco, the Peasant Museum Cinema, Eforie Cinematheque, Instituto Cervantes, CINETic, and Goethe-Institut. Animest.21 trailer https://youtu.be/2...
This year's festival edition will officially kick off with the premiere of Viva Carmen!, Sébastien Laudenbach's feature film presented in 2026 at Cannes as part of the Quinzaine des Cinéastes and selected in the official competition at Annecy. Known to animation aficionados for films such as The Girl Without Hands and the multi-award-winning Chicken for Linda, Laudenbach re...
True to our mission of bringing animated art ever closer to every viewer, Animest.21 proposes a growing series of inclusive events, with support from institutional partners and NGOs in the field. On the very first day of the festival, Friday, October 2, at 11 AM at Cinema Elvire Popesco, we're screening the children's film Born in the Jungle / Secretele junglei in its n...
Animest continues to offer a launching pad for teenagers who love animation through the special Fresh Frames section, scheduled for Sunday, October 4, at 4.30 PM at the Peasant Museum Cinema. Curated by Lidia Dîrțu, Roxana Constantinescu, and Sofia Toma, members of the Teen Jury from last year's edition, the section brings together nine short films made by high school stude...
Over 320 animated productions make up the full program of the 21st edition of Animest (October 2-11, 2026): a 10-day cinematic marathon for animation fans of all ages. The selection of out-of-competition feature films includes several of the year’s most acclaimed international animations, presented and awarded at the world's leading festivals. Among these films is Decorado,...
On Saturday, October 3, at 11 PM sharp, the Peasant Museum Cinema will become a site for nocturnal explorations, oddities and unfiltered visual experiments. Curated and hosted by the one and only Michael Helmerhorst, the 13th Trippy Animation Night will unleash on the silver screen a collage of 13 pieces “made by real life artists far from the ever-expanding regions of AI.”...
Designed as a meeting point for creative communities and industries, Animest Hub turns CINETic and Instituto Cervantes into bridges for connection between animation, gamedev and professional training during the festival, specifically October 3-10, 2026. The Animest Hub project is co-financed by the Bucharest City Hall through ARCUB – The Cultural Center of Bucharest under the B...
On Tuesday, October 6, at 11 PM, check any prejudice at the door of the Peasant Museum Cinema and fully enjoy the season’s spiciest late-night screening. Curated by Jakub Spevák (Slovakia), the EROTICA selection will explore bodies, desires, fantasies, and the fluidity of identity through explicit shorts. The program brings together 16 short films from around the world, whic...
On Friday, October 9, at 11 PM, the Peasant Museum Cinema will host the year’s most eagerly awaited late-night marathon exploration of the darkest shores of fear and the bizarre. Horror fans, rejoice: we have carefully curated a raw journey through the grotesque, modern anxieties, and dark folklore. This year's selection brings together 20 short films from around the world,...
Animest Hub is the festival's interdisciplinary space dedicated to new visual formats and creative dialogue – for animation and tech lovers, this translates to a series of workshops, debates, and explorations at the border between technology and art, running October 3-10, 2026, at CINETic and Instituto Cervantes. The Animest Hub project is co-financed by the Bucharest City Hall...
On Thursday, October 8, from 11 PM, music and cinema will unite to animate the Peasant Museum Cinema – expect an electrifying night of the most spectacular recent animated music videos. The AniMusic Competition means beats, bold techniques and big-name sound collabs, with a special guest: MC Tony Baboon will be working the room live, amplifying the screening with sonic improvis...
Between October 2-11, 2026, the 21st edition of the Animest International Animation Film Festival is ready to welcome and charm its youngest cinephiles. Minimest, our section dedicated to kids and families, returns with an impressive selection of feature and short films exploring powerful, timely topics in line with this year's festival theme: NATURE. Beyond the screenings, we...
The Romanian Competition returns to Animest.21 (October 2-11, 2026) with a provocative and authentic selection: an updated scan of local artists’ minds, complete with worries and creative dreams. This year, the section's selector Mihai Mitrică has put together a compact 78-minute program which brings together ten short films, all premiering in Romania at Animest. Thus, the 2026...