Get to know the selection of the Series Competition at the 19th Animator International Animated Film Festival!

Here are the films that have qualified for the International Animated Series Competition – one of the younger sections of the Animator Festival. The Series Competition was first organized in 2021 and immediately attracted strong interest from creators and audiences alike. This year, 220 series episodes were submitted, of which the selection committee chose 26. They will be divided into three screenings: one aimed at adult audiences and two designed for children (which does not mean older viewers won’t also enjoy them). The International Series Competition is the only competition with a double chance of winning. The results are decided by two juries: an international jury composed of industry professionals and a children’s jury.

Here is the selection of the International Animated Series Competition:

Anselmo Wannabe – L’Architetto / The Architect

dir. Massimo Ottoni, Italy 2025

So, kids… what do you want to be when you grow up? Anselmo pictures himself as a super architect! But between crazy drafting tables, mischievous software, and impossible geometries, becoming the best won’t be so easy… Especially with the amazing “archi-star” Letizia in the way!

Massimo Ottoni is an author, director, and co-founder of IBRIDO Studio. He graduated in Literature, Music and Performing Arts at La Sapienza University in Rome and specialized in animation at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Turin with the short film Imperium Vacui. He later directed several award-winning shorts – The Steinway, Water Hunters and Corkscrewed - and worked in various roles on international animation productions.

Doggie And Pussycat / O pejskovi a kočičce 

dir. Barbora Dlouhá, Czech Republic 2025

It’s Doggie’s name day and Pussycat’s birthday. The children bring them a cake that looks just like a real one – but it’s made entirely of sand, and of course Doggie and Pussycat can’t eat that. So they decide to bake a cake themselves. They put in everything they like best to eat, so that the cake will be a hundred times delicious! But what will happen if they leave it alone for a while? And will it be edible at all? Director and artist Bára Dlouhá was inspired by Josef Čapek’s book Tales of Doggie and Pussycat, first published in 1929.

Barbora Dlouhá – czech artist and director, best known as the author of animated music videos, TV idents, special effects films and children’s series. She studied puppetry at DAMU and later animation at FAMU in Prague. Since 1993 she has been collaborating with Czech Television, most recently on the series Doggie and Pussycat, which had its world premiere at the ANIFILM festival in 2025 and was presented in the main competition at the ZLÍNFEST festival in 2025.

Firsts / Primeras – Junko Tabei

dir. Bambú Orellana, Paloma Mora, Chile, Spain 2024

“Firsts” is an animated, anthological show about women that follow their dreams and become pioneers in different fields such as the arts, sports, science and social movements around the world. This episode is set in 1975 Japan, where Junko Tabei prepares herself for the adventure of her life: becoming the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Funny Snails

dir. Dragana Stanković, Slovenia 2024

“Funny Snails” is a compilation of 5 episodes of a short animated series about social problems and stereotypes. The main characters are snails. Each of them represents one specific social group and the stereotypes that are characteristic of that social group. They talk about different topics, from cleaning the house to women’s issues rights.

Dragana Stanković is a shy and curly artist from Bosnia. She began her art journey in 2017 when she applied for a Bachelor's degree in graphic design. After her Bachelor's degree, she realized that she liked animation the most, so she decided to continue her studies in the field of animation. Now (2025), she has finished her master's studies at the University of Nova Gorica, where she has worked on her animated series called “Funny Snails”.

Haha, You Clowns – Improv

dir. Dave Cappa, Joe Cappa, USA 2025

Tristan gets immersed in a new hobby.

Hell

dir. Parker Croft, USA 2025

A place where dreams are real, wishes come true, and everything is always awful for everyone.

Parker Croft’s most recent short film, “As Easy As Closing Your Eyes” (2024), has earned 144 awards across more than 200 film festivals, including 16 for Best Director. His debut short, “Suncatcher” (2019), was similarly acclaimed, screening at 62 festivals and earning 13 awards. Croft first made his mark as a screenwriter with the feature Falling Overnight (2011), which won the Special Jury Prize at Cinequest and later streamed on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

Henshin

dir. Chendi Zhao, United Kingdom 2025

A story about a child who fantasizes being a superhero.

Chendi Zhao is a 2D animator from Shanxi, China, currently based in London. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Animation at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Working primarily with digital 2D drawing, Zhao’s practice explores how elements of popular culture can function as a narrative language for personal storytelling. His films often transform everyday experiences and private emotions into visual metaphors. Drawing inspiration from internet culture, genre media, and daily observation, he approaches animation as a flexible medium that allows ordinary moments to be reframed through playful and symbolic imagery. His short film “Diet” (2024) visualizes the psychological and physical experience of dieting through metaphorical transformation, while “Henshin” (2025) draws on Japanese tokusatsu culture to depict a child’s fantasy of heroic transformation.

Hungarian Folk Tales – The Prince And His Three Pals / Magyar népmesék – A királyfi meg a három cimborája

dir. Peter Bogyo, Hungary 2025

The old king is unhappy about his son, so he sends him away to gain experience in the world. However, instead of managing on his own, the prince finds companions with special abilities who help him overcome the obstacles he encounters on his journey.

Peter Bogyo – in 2021 he graduated from the Moholy University of Art and Design with a MA in Animation. Since then he has been working as a director, animator and background painter in various projects.

Kito & Maja – The Dream Globe Tales OF PUMPHUT THE WIZARD And The Lack Of Wind / Kito, Maja und die Kugelkiste – VOM PUMPHUT und der Windstille 

dir. Eliza Płocieniak-Alvarez, Germany 2025

Kito and Maja reenact the story of how the millers of Lusatia were saved by a mysterious lone wanderer.

Eliza Płocieniak-Alvarez is an animation director and creative producer at Blaue Pampelmuse in Leipzig. After living in Spain, Norway, Portugal, and Mexico, she studied at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her graduation film “The Very Hairy Alphabet” was developed into a series with KIKA. Other projects, for TV and cinema, are in production. She focuses on craftsmanship and visual storytelling for young audiences.

Konigiri-Kun Itadakimasu – Let's eat! 

dir. Mari Miyazawa, Japan 2025

Meet Konigiri-kun! He's an energetic little onigiri with a triangular body and a head sprinkled with sesame seeds. One day, while he's enjoying a picnic, the side dishes from his lunchbox are blown away! They roll and tumble down into a mysterious hole... He lands in a wondrous place, filled with countless scrolls recording the history of evolution and a strange white tree that projects their images. “Where in the world...?” Before he knows it, Konigiri-kun and his friends are pulled into this map of evolution and sent hurtling toward the future. I wonder what the “Itadakimasu” of the future will be like?

Mari Miyazawa is a bento artist and animation director. Since 2003, she has created unique bento art that brings joy to both chefs and diners. In 2012, she began animating her original characters. Her series "Konigiri-kun," featuring a rice ball hero, has been broadcast on NHK since 2014. Her work has received many international awards, including the Grand Prix at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2018.

Lily

dir. Kate Siegel, USA 2024

“Lily” is the first animated short film written by Stephen King, which he adapted from his own short story, “Here There Be Tygers”. After being embarrassed by a vicious teacher, a young third-grader discovers a tiger in his school bathroom. Directed by Kate Siegel, written by Stephen King, designed and animated by Pete Scalzitti, and produced by Mali Elfman.

Kate Siegel recently directed the seventh installment of Shudder’s series “V/H/S/Beyond”, which earned a 2024 Critics Choice Award Nomination (Best Movie Made for Television). She also produced the dark comedy film “Damned If You Do”, starring Harvey Guillen set for release later this year, and will produce the zombie action-horror film “Epilogue”, directed by Michael Fimognari. As an actress, Siegel is best known for starring in such acclaimed series as Netflix’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “Midnight Mass”, “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor”, along with films “Oculus” and “Hush”, the latter of which she also co-wrote alongside Mike Flanagan. Up next, Siegel will star alongside Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillian, and Mark Hamill in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Life of Chuck”. Beyond her on-screen work, she is a vocal advocate for strong female representation in horror and embraces the genre’s capacity to explore themes of fear and resilience.

Maple Bluebeard / Il est une fois – Barbe Bleue, le québécois maudit 

dir. Patrick Volve, France 2025

Throughout “Il est une fois” (“There Once Was...”) we encounter Little Belgian Riding Hood, Bluebeard, a Wolf on a motorcycle, a duck that lays golden eggs, three little pigs, and many more characters whom we think we know already, but turn out to be different than expected. Seeing as these tales cross both centuries and borders, this series can become an opportunity for a colourful present-day voyage that visits Marseille, makes a stop at Montreal and ends up in Brazza. Fasten your seatbelts, we are ready for take-off!

Patrick Béraud, aka Volve (b. 1972, France), studied audio-visual media to become a sound engineer, specialising in post-production for animated films. Then He co-founded the experimental collective La Lueur Déchirée (1997) and later the production company Metronomic (2000), directing a number of music videos and an educational series for UNESCO. He also directed award-winning short films and is now directing the second season of the series while developing a new animated series, TILT.

Martina & Guará – Good Morning / Bom dia

dir. Paula de Abreu Resende, Brazil 2025

“Good morning” is the introductory videoclip of the multiplatform musical album “Martina and Guará – Beyond the Horizon”, a project currently in development and seeking funding to come to life. In the music video, we see a brief glimpse of the rhea Martina’s routine in her hometown of Belo Horizonte, just before she and her brother are discovered by humans and taken to Anhangá Island – where the real journey begins. In their attempt to return home, Martina and Guará will face deep themes such as mental health, immigration, and loneliness, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, guided by music.

Paula de Abreu Resend is a passionate Brazilian 2D artist and art director with over a decade of experience in the animation and video game industries. Founder and leader of Estúdio Paulares, she has successfully directed award-winning projects ranging from mobile games to animated shorts. Besides, she has collaborated with renowned companies such as Netflix, Cartoon Network, Disney, Epic Games, and Lego.

My Black Is Cracking

dir. Bianca D. Lambert, USA 2025

When chin hairs sprout and deep lines appear, thirty-something Danni is thrust into a battle over how a Black woman is “supposed” to age – and who decides what “aging gracefully” really means.

Bianca Lambert is a filmmaker, beauty journalist, and creative producer from Atlanta. Her award-winning animated short, “Super High: A Period Piece”, explores Black women’s experiences with fibroids and has screened at Oscar-qualifying festivals, including Slamdance, Atlanta Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and New Orleans Film Festival. Formerly a beauty and style video producer at BuzzFeed, she has written for ESSENCE, PEOPLE, Bustle, Byrdie, HuffPost, and Who What Wear. She also won a 2023 Webby Award with Amazon Studios and is touring with her second short, “My Black Is Cracking”.

Mytikah – The Book Of Heroes – Violeta Parra

dir. Hygor Amorim, Brazil 2025

Mytikah takes Manga and Leco to meet young Violeta Parra and her family. As she grows older, Violeta forms a musical duo with her sister, but her true mission is to preserve Chilean folk songs beyond oral tradition. Years later, as she falls ill, Violeta relies on the children's help to open a museum in her home.

Hygor Amorim is a founding partner and director of Oz Produtora. He created and directed the project “Animando Vidas,” leading the production of six animated short films, and directed the doc series “Seeds of Education”, the animated series “Mytikah - The Book of Heroes” and “Mytikah Explores”, the shorts “Mytikah - The Modern Art Week” and “Teo, the Blue Boy”, and the feature documentary “The Echo Within Me.” He also directs and produces commercial and institutional audiovisual projects.

Ormhildur The Brave

dir. Thorey Mjallhvit, Iceland 2026

Ormhildur, a young girl goes on a mission with old Albert, Gudrun a sneaky witch and Brunhild a brutish gang leader across dangerous highlands to cast a spell in the cave of Evocation. A spell so powerful, it will cause all the mythical creatures to be locked back into glaciers, restoring humanity back to its place of absolute power.

Thorey Mjallhvit has a BA in Animation and an MA in Creative Writing and has dedicated her life to visual and written storytelling. She is an animator and writer/director.She has written three comic books and directed numerous animation and live action projects, short films and music videos.

PAI PAI – Typhoon’s Coming

dir. Hugo Huang, Taiwan 2025

“PAI PAI” is a 13-episode stop-motion animation series featuring a whimsical 10-year-old girl growing up in rural Taiwan. Blending fantasy and reality, each 12-minute episode turns everyday embarrassments into magical adventures full of humor, heart, and emotional growth. Through hand-crafted puppets and traditional stop-motion techniques, the show brings to life Pai Pai’s vibrant world – where family chaos, school rivalry, and village gossip create both challenges and joy. Rooted in Taiwanese culture, the series captures the warmth and imagination of childhood, offering an authentic and visually rich experience for children and families worldwide.

Hugo Huang is known for combining dough figurine craft with stop-motion animation. Her films blend handmade aesthetics with layered storytelling, exploring solitude, identity, and social change. Her short Bart (2017) won the Golden Harvest Award, and Where Am I Going? (2018) received the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Short. Later works Little Hilly and Anthropocene expanded her vision into cultural allegories. PAI PAI continues this pursuit, intertwining a child’s imagination with reality.

Primal – Vengeance of Death

dir. Genndy Tartakovsky, USA 2026

Spear's lifeless body is reanimated to enact brutal vengeance.

Sassy

dir. Qieer Wang, Calvin Lofton, USA 2026

Sassy, his conjoined sister: Nancy, and their Yaoguai family find themselves caught in wacky adventures filled with mystery, magic, and folklore!

Qieer Wang is a NYC based illustrator and animation artist who likes to explore conceptual ideas of sensations and absurdity using digital techniques with character-driven visual works. Calvin Lofton is an entrepreneur and creative based out of NYC. His main focus is storytelling and editing.

Smiling Friends  – Le Voyage Incroyable De Monsieur Grenouille

dir. Michael Cusack, Aron Fromm, Zach Hadel, David Hootselle, USA 2025

In this highly acclaimed award-winning episode of “Smiling Friends”, a walking talking frog will change your life and rewire your brain.

Soul Shift

dir. Christian Franz Schmidt, Germany 2025

“Soul Shift” – a visually stunning and delightfully wacky animated series by Christian Franz Schmidt – follows Evolution Managers shaping life across the universe. When Dew Blue and Sunny-Yellow enter a cosmic contest, it spirals into a wild battle that tests not only their strategy, but their friendship too.

Christian Franz Schmidt (1984) studied animation at HFF Konrad Wolf Potsdam-Babelsberg. He was a pre-selection juror for the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film in 2013. From 2012-2019, he headed animation at a major media agency and has been working as a freelancer since 2012.

Tales From Outer Suburbia

dir. Noel Cleary, Australia 2025

Klara and her little brother Pim move to the suburbs with their mum Lucy, all struggling to settle into their new lives. But there’s more to their new neighbourhood than meets the eye. While Pim and Klara grapple with the emotional upheaval they’re going through, they also face bizarre encounters, exciting adventures and wondrous experiences. In episode 5 “Eric”, Lucy welcomes a tiny leaf man into the home as a boarder, and Pim is thrilled! While his stay is short-lived, Eric leaves a lasting impression on the family, gifting them something they’ve been missing – unity. Based on the graphic anthology by Shaun Tan.

Series Director – Noel Cleary is a director, story artist and character animator with extensive experience in film and TV series, including time at Animal Logic and Walt Disney Studios Sydney. He is very passionate about all aspects of his profession and strives to produce emotive, compelling stories and characters. Amongst other projects, he is the Director of Tales From Outer Suburbia, Maya the Bee: The Honey Games and Maya the Bee: The Golden Orb, Co-Director for Blinky Bill – The Movie and Episodic Director for TV series Tashi.

Creative Director – Shaun Tan grew up in Perth and works as an artist, writer and film-maker in Melbourne. He is best known for illustrated books that deal with social and historical subjects through dream-like imagery, widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun is the recipient of an Academy Award for the short animated film The Lost Thing, the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK.

Tenderland

dir. Juho Maurinen, Finland 2024

Two friends navigating a world of fantasy and hanging out. The stakes are low and morale is high.

Juho Maurinen is a filmmaker, visual artist, animator and musician from Helsinki, Finland. He has deep roots in DIY culture and he’s been described as an “unstoppable genre bending creative force”. Maurinen believes in sincerity and personal intuition in all his work and he enjoys finding new ways of creating.

The 7 Boxes / As 7 Caixas – The Music Box

dir. Jorge Ribeiro, Nuno Amorim, Portugal 2025

In a city where children are trapped in their rooms and hooked up to screens controlled by a maniacal clown, Pandora and her friends fight to escape this reality. Each of them discovers their own personal universe, free from the logic of the BoxCity. In these small worlds, their creativity flows and they discover new ways of experiencing the world. However, Whiteface, the clown who controls the city, does everything he can to prevent the children's freedom.

Jorge Ribeiro started his animation career in 1999 at Magic Toons in Lisbon. He has worked as an animator, layout artist, director, voice actor and illustrator on many productions. He directed the RTP series Os “Espadinhas” (2004) and “Visiokids” (2014), and the TV special “Isto Não é um Chapéu”. In 2015 he founded the studio Os Filmes do Pinguim.

Nuno Amorim worked at RTP as a graphic designer and director, leading the graphics department. In 1991 he founded Animais AVPL, producing animation, motion graphics and documentaries.

The Adventures Of Tol-Dar (& KITU Is Also There!) 

dir. Bruce Caruso, Argentina 2025

“The Adventures of Tol-Dar (& KITU is also there!)” is all that remains of a (fictitious) Saturday-morning cartoon that was lost to time, created sometime in the 1980s to advertise the “Tol-Dar” line of action figures. Tol-Dar has all the outward qualities of an '80s action hero, but none of the bravery or heroism. He is to He-Man what Don Quixote is to King Arthur, what Johnny Bravo is to Elvis. When his life is on the line, Tol-Dar turns to the camera and attempts to teach “the kids at home“ whatever life lesson he believes can be drawn from the situation. Tol-Dar's advice is almost always wrong and tends to fail spectacularly. We are led to believe that this is why - while its contemporaries continue to be remade and rebooted – Tol-Dar's animated series became “lost media“, of which only a single episode remains. 

The Team / El Team 

dir. Luber Yesid Zúñiga Ordóñez, Colombia 2024

Mariana is a girl with a bold and strong character who wants to be the best BMX rider in her region. Despite the obstacles and through the anecdotes told by her grandfather Rodri, who is her coach and former reporter of cycling races, she will find the inspiration to be a great athlete while they travel back in time and meet different champions.

Luber Yesid Zúñiga Ordóñez – M.A. in Audiovisual Writing, film and television director and producer, and graphic designer. Partner at Cinemazul Media Group. He has directed the short films “Cham-Piñón”. “Medusa de Papel”, “Cielo Rojo”, “Cólera”, “Mi Ranchito Hermoso”, “The Magic Sneakers” and “The Great Feat”; as well as the series “The Team” (animation), “Los Hipoportantes” (animation), “Mariachi Capital” (fiction) and “Victorias y Glorias” (documentary). He has also developed expanded narratives in projects such as “Medusa de Papel” and “Escarabajos”.