BEST OF ANIMATOR 2025

In the 1990s, 8-year-old Agata leaves Poland for Belgium. Her perspective transforms the migratory reality into an initiatory experience.

Sylwia Szkiłądź is a director of short animated films. She was born in 1987 in Podlaskie (in Poland), which she left at the age of 8 with her parents to live in Brussels. However, Podlaskie was and remains one of her most important artistic inspirations. Her film productions include: ‘Limaçon et caricoles’ (2012) co-directed with Nim Gamboa, ‘La Soupe aux fraises’ (2014) and ‘Le Renard minuscule’ (2015) co-directed with Aline Quertain. She works freelance on various forms of animation: video clips co-directed with Jessica Poon ‘The Skeleton band’, ‘The Midnight Secret socks party’, animations created with Marion Sellenet for the series ‘Les Chroniques végétales’. She shares her knowledge and experience of animation with children and adults by organising workshops in centres and schools. She currently lives and works in Belgium, France and Poland.

Humans started building relationships with pigeons dated back to 10,000 years ago. By observing NYC pigeons daily, QIE was committed to carry out their unique vibes and to tell their history to the young folks.  

The hedgehog is just about to go into hibernation when he notices that one of his spines is missing. It's stuck in Lena's dog's bottom, of all places. Getting it back won't be easy...   

Taking into account the short attention span of modern human beings, all of the episodes last exactly 60 seconds. In this short time, complex historical, social and philosophical topics become small humorous miniatures.  

The Protagonist is a psychiatric survivor. Facing to hospital institution recalling a Kafka’s ‘The Trial’, situation with no exit. Just the decision to break through thorny bushes of reality appears as a rescue. The Protagonist meets alternative views of persons-birds focused on changes. The choice is a path divided for two. She can agree with actual situation or further batle, based on the causes for fight, including redefinition of mental disease.  

Dorota Skupniewicz – Filmmaker based in Belfast (Northern Ireland). Grown up during start of brutal capitalism in Poland, after systematic change in her country. This strongly affected her view of the World and the Art. Most of her life focused on activism connected with Human Rights and the Earth. Graduated Animation faculty on the University of Arts in Poznań. Connected with organisation IDHA NYC. 

Ordinary life repeats itself every day. The succession of moments that we repeat over and over again is never the same, and everything changes and wavers. The moment we touch something, our consciousness can go to a place that does not exist anywhere in the past, nor in the future. In an uncertain and fluctuating world, only the feeling of the body touching something, which exists only in this present reality, can be recognised as “now”. That moment is lovely. 

Yoriko Mizushiri – Born in 1984. She creates animations that use body parts and everyday objects as motifs for tactile expression. In addition to making short films, she is also involved in the production of music videos, advertisements, and movies for installations. Her short films have been screened and awarded at festivals worldwide, including Anxious Body, completed in 2021, premiered in the Directors' Fortnight Competition at the 74th Cannes Film Festival and has won 15 international awards. 

Nastia’s Zoom lessons on using a laptop for her mom are disrupted by unstable internet—and resurfacing family traumas.  

Anastazja Naumenko is a visual artist and director, whose main investigation focuses on intertwinement and co-relations between real and fictional worlds, hence most of their works are mix of documentary and fiction. They are currently studying at die Angewandte in Vienna. Their first film “We hope you won’t need to come back” was shown on more than 25 festivals around the world.  

“The Pool or Death of a Goldfish” is a story about a possessive relationship between a mother and her daughter. The main character, through unexpressed anger and rebellion against her mother, transforms into a titular goldfish. Unspoken words, gestures, and repressed childhood emotions manifest in harsh treatment of both herself and others. The film is framed by a compositional structure in which the main character finally allows herself to feel grief, thereby entering a process of self-acceptance and forgiveness.  

Daria Wiktoria Kopiec. Film and theater director. A graduate of the Directing Department of the Theatre Academy in Warsaw and the Film School in Łódź at the Cinematography Department, specialisation: Animation and Special Effects. Trainee at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels – La Cambre in Brussels. Member of the Polish Filmmakers Association. Participant of the Berlinale Talent Campus 2017 program. She made internationally acclaimed animated films "Cosmos" 2016 (Annecy, main competition) and “Your Own Bullshit” 2019 (USA Austin, SXSW, jury special mention). She gained recognition in the theatre community with her play “The Daughters of Lear”, appreciated by audiences in many countries, and the television theatre „The Rita G. Affair” 2018 (Grand Prix at the TEATROTEKA FEST festival). Currently, she has finished work on the plasticine animation “The Swimming Pool or Death of a Goldfish” and is finishing the live-action short “It's All Because of Her”.